Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

One of my favorite non-CLP resources for doing historical research about the city is Historic Pittsburgh. Hosted by the University of Pittsburgh, this website hosts digitized content from more than a dozen libraries and archives around the city, so it’s a great one-stop-shopping experience for genealogy, house histories, archival research, and – my personal, preferred time-suck – historic photos! With one search, you get information…

We’re excited to have remote access to Ancestry.com right now, but it’s not the only site out there for online genealogy research. Here’s a roundup of several sites the Pennsylvania Department routinely recommends. FamilySearch.org If you’re not familiar with FamilySearch, and you’re serious about genealogy research, please stop reading right now and go make a free account! This site is completely free to use from anywhere,…

While we're living through an epidemic that is unprecedented in our lifetimes, CLP has closed in the past in a similar situation. The library was closed for two weeks in 1918 during the influenza pandemic that swept the state in September and October of that year. The library’s 1918 annual report makes a note of this, but doesn’t provide a lot of other details. After…

Based on the questions we’re getting through our new chat reference system, a lot of you are working on your family history history right now. For the beginners out there, I thought I’d share the top five questions new genealogists ask the librarians in the Pennsylvania Department when they’re getting started. 1. Can I look at the file on my family?  This is absolutely the…

Now that you some time at home, how about starting on those projects you’ve always said you were going to work on? Projects like researching your family history? Hmm? To help you out with that resolution, we’re happy to report that Ancestry.com’s Library Edition will be available from home, for free, for all Allegheny County library card holders until April 30! Ancestry.com is the big name…

Here are a few titles we recommend to learn more about the Irish and their influences, and experiences, here in Pittsburgh.