UWRF Area Research Center Wants to Help the Community Learn Their History

By Jaci Tweeten

March 4, 2011—Mapping a family’s genealogy has become a popular activity, but it’s no small task. To provide access to a vast information archive to the general public, University of Wisconsin-River Falls Archives and Area Research Center (ARC) is holding classes to allow people to understand how to use the archives and explain why the resources are different than using a library.

The classes are set for March 12, April 9, and May 14 from 9:15-10 a.m. at the ARC in the lower level of the Chalmer Davee Library at UWRF.

Each class will revolve around a certain county in Wisconsin since each county is different through their naturalization records, tax records and school records. The March 12 class will be focused on Burnett County, the April 9 class will be based on St. Croix county, and the May 14 class, Pierce County.

“So far, we have had mostly genealogists take the classes, but we always ask what people are working on. If someone is working on something other than genealogy, we will talk about materials that are useful for their research as well,” says Kathryn Otto, head of University Archives and the ARC.

The class also explains the difference between the University Archives and the Area Research Center and the special collections materials that the university has to offer. The public can learn where information is located in various catalogs, indexes and inventories. Various types of microfilm readers and reader printers are shown and how to find your ancestry at Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest on the university’s computers.

The classes are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Otto at kathryn.otto@uwrf.edu or 715-425-3567.