Family Heritage Festival

Celebrate the 9th Annual Family Heritage Festival on Saturday, October 28 with library staff and genealogy experts.

Sponsored by the Friends of the John F. Germany Public Library.

Events

All in-person events will be held at the John F. Germany Public Library, where the online presentations will also be screened live.

  • Photography and Your Genealogy Portfolio

    Online at 10:30 a.m.

    Get tips on how to add print and digital photos to your genealogy portfolio. Learn how to incorporate old and new images of family, friends, neighbors, cemeteries, ancestral homes, and heirlooms, even if you have not identified all the people and places yet. Presented by Karen Molohon.

    Register

  • Getting the Most from the Burgert Brothers Photographic Collection

    In-person at 11:45 a.m.

    Join author, photographer, and historian Chip Weiner for an entertaining discussion on best practices for viewing, researching, and using the library's vast collection of historic Burgert Brothers photographs. Along with a variety of samples and some rarely-seen images, get tips on best search practices, challenges in online searches, and pitfalls that might limit your research.

  • Don’t Shake it Like a Polaroid Picture: How to Properly Preserve and Digitize Your Photographs

    In-person at 2:00 p.m.

    Photography has changed over the years. Learn how to digitize and preserve all the various formats your memories have taken from albumen prints to Polaroid pictures. Presented by Selena Martinez.

  • Florida Memory Project

    Online at 3:15 p.m.

    What is Florida Memory? The presentation will cover examples of resources included in Florida Memory including how things are selected for digitization, and how the online resources relate to the physical holdings. Among the many types of material available in Florida Memory, there more than 200,000 digitized photographs and illustrations from the Florida Photographic Collection. Presented by Matthew Storey.

    Register

Guest Presenters

Researching Your Family History

Exploring Tampa's Cultural History

Watch Recordings from Past Family Heritage Fests

2022 Playlist

2021 Playlist

Get Started Researching Your Family Tree

  • Access Genealogy 🠚 African American Genealogy

    Provides a variety of links for conducting African American research, including archives, societies, biographies, church records, etc.

  • ACPL Genealogy Center 🠚 African American

    Visit the African American Gateway page to explore ancestry by U.S. State, U.S. Regions, other countries, and subject. The list of links per page is extensive.

  • International African American Museum Center for Family History 🠚 African American

    Provides access to marriage records, obituary and funeral programs, bible records, and more.

  • Access Genealogy 🠚 Native American

    This site assists the novice genealogist with approaches to researching ancestors. Links to essential materials are included, as well as free Native American databases.

  • ACPL Genealogy Center 🠚 Native American

    This website offers tips for beginning your research. Links are provided for records of different tribes, as well as indexes.

  • Cuban Genealogy Center 🠚 Cuban Genealogy

    Resources include family trees, passenger lists (searchable by passenger name and ships), Cuban church records, etc.. They also provide an extensive list of other links for Hispanic American genealogy and for other countries (Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, etc.).

  • American Jewish Historical Society 🠚 Jewish

    “Established in 1892, the American Jewish History Society provides access to more than 30 million documents and 50,000 books, photographs, art and artifacts that reflect the history of the Jewish presence in the United States from 1654 to the present.”

  • Mexican War Soldiers & Sailors Database

    This site contains over 89,000 records of soldiers who served in the two-year war – includes soldiers from both side of the war, born in U.S., Mexico, Canada, and beyond.

  • Harvard Library 🠚 Immigration Records, 1789 – 1930

    “This digital collection of historical materials from Harvard's libraries, archives, and museums documents voluntary immigration to the United States from the signing of the Constitution to the start of the Great Depression.” Items totaling more than 11,000 include both images and books/documents.

  • Ellis Island Foundation 🠚 Immigration Records

    The Passenger Search database allows you to look for family members who arrived at the Port of New York from 1820 to 1957. Totaling almost 65 million passenger records and ship manifests, researchers can unearth of variety of information collected at debarkation points.

  • Genealogy Indexer 🠚 Central & East European Records

    Contains digitized pages of historical directories, yizkor books, military lists, personal histories, and more.

  • Routes to Roots Foundation 🠚 Jewish Records

    Provides articles and essays, archive contacts, maps, etc. for Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova.

  • Digitalarkivet 🠚 Norwegian Archives

    Free to use, researchers can view photographs, read full text printouts, watch videos, and listen to digitized recordings.

  • Geneteka 🠚 Polish Records

    Search birth, marriage, and death records by province and parish – with or without a name.

  • Hungaricana 🠚 Hungarian Records

    Museums and libraries throughout Hungary have worked together to provide centralized access to databases, records, documents, images, historical maps, etc.

  • Ancestors Portal 🠚 Italian Records

    “Antenati Portal was created to make available online the enormous documentary heritage of registry and genealogical interest – in particular, acts of civil status, the conscription lists and matricular roles – existing in the Italian State Archives, which is indispensable for conducting research on family and individual history, but also of great interest for historical, genealogical, demographic and social science research.”

  • WieWasWie 🠚 Dutch Records

    Offers a database of more than 220 million people.