For those curious about tracing family history, the township library has a genealogy club that provides resources once a month.
“We meet on the first Tuesday of every month at 4 to about 5:30 p.m.,” said librarian Nancy Polhamus. “We have no rules and anybody who’s interested can join. At the meetings, we share that interest (in genealogy) and talk about what people have found.
“We always have something to find, and people give each other advice on what to do,” she added. “We also talk about historical sites that people visit and such. A lot of people who come to our meetings are originally from Philadelphia.”
To help patrons with research, the library offers access to the popular genealogy website Ancestry.com known as Ancestry Library Edition. To access it, individuals must be present at the library and have either a borrower’s card from the Gloucester County Library System (GCLS) or a visitor’s pass. Both can be obtained at the library’s front desk.
Access to Ancestry Library Edition is also available – in person – at any of the other libraries in the county system. For those who cannot make it to the library, there are two sources that can be accessed from home as long as the individual has a library card: Fold3, which has a database of military records; and Heritage Quest, the state’s own database.
“We try out different sources if it’s a particularly good website or seminar,” said Polhamus.
Ancestry meetings require registration through a form filled out on the calendar of the library system website on the date the next event is scheduled to take place. In the case of the genealogy club, that is Nov. 1.
The registration form asks for first and last names, phone number and email address. Anyone who intends to join a club meeting must fill out the form separately.
