CICERO — At the Cicero Branch of Northern Onondaga Public Library (NOPL), Reference Librarian Susan Hansen has a specialty for genealogy research. For years she has been educating others on using the library’s resources to find answers about their family’s history.
In the past, Hansen had provided genealogy programs at the Cicero Library, but now, she’s created videos of her research and posted them online. Visit nopl.org/blog to find Sue’s post, “The How-to’s to Using Ancestry,” which hosts her tutorial videos that walk you through birth and military records, message boards, immigration and passenger lists, and much more within the world’s largest collection of online family history records, Ancestry. Follow Sue as she shows the new tools within the Ancestry database and walks you through how to use them effectively.
At this time, Ancestry has extended its at-home access through March 2021 when you log in through the library’s website. If you were ever looking to try Ancestry, now is a great time to get a library card.
In addition to Ancestry, NOPL offers a toolkit for genealogy research, which can be found at nopl.org/familyhistorytoolkit. There you will find a variety of resources and links to help you with your research, such as newspaper archives, FamilySearch database, local yearbook collection, and recommended reads to help you uncover and navigate through your family’s information.
To receive help researching your family’s history, call any of our library branches for reference assistance. To gain access to the Ancestry database, sign up for a library card at nopl.org, or pick up a printed enrollment form via curbside; Brewerton Library at 315-676-7484, Cicero Library at 315-699-2032, or North Syracuse Library at 315-458-6184.
Are you without a computer or internet? Tech kits, which include a Chromebook and hotspot, are available for checkout for your genealogy research using your library card.
