June 23, 2023
Recently I wrote about some of the great genealogy resources such as online databases now available at the Poudre Libraries. Today I want to talk about some other great features there. While not specifically genealogical in nature, these resources will help an intrepid genealogist in her quest to put together a family tree.
For the last month or so, I’ve been collaborating via email with a distant cousin. We’re trying to push our mutual May Family line back a few generations in Northern Ireland. My cousin is a seasoned genealogist, but she hasn’t spent much time on this specific family. Over the years, I’ve sporadically worked on this family and have gathered some records for them.
The family name May is not common in the part of County Armagh that my ancestors came from. Because of that, I have collected documents for any May from the right area, even if I couldn’t see how they might fit into the family. Many of these documents are paper copies that were collected for me by professional researchers and genealogical volunteers in Ireland.
My cousin needs to see these documents if she’s going to help me figure out which ones might apply to our family. These old leases and other records are large. Most were copied on 11” x 17” paper. My home scanner won’t handle sheets of that size. Enter the library to the rescue.
The Poudre Libraries have copy machines that will copy sheets up to 11” x17”. You can print the copies or copy them to a flash drive. You can also have the copies emailed to your home computer. Best of all, these services are free! With a library card (also free), Poudre Libraries allows you to make 200 free printed copies per month. If you do send the copies via email or save them to a flash drive, there is no charge at all. You don’t even have to have a library card for that.
I took a stack of eight or nine Irish leases to the library the other day. They were all 11” x 17”, and the library copier handled them easily. I chose to save them to a flash drive so that I could check that the copies were correct before I left.
The library has always had desktop computers available for patron usage, but they are often all in use. Recently they installed a laptop vending machine which allows you to check out a computer with a library card for a two-hour period. Whenever I’ve checked, there were always laptops available.
After I copied my leases, I checked out a laptop and used it to confirm that I had gotten all my copies onto my flash drive. I could also have emailed the copies to my home computer and then checked my email account on the borrowed laptop. Either way was easier than lugging my own laptop to town.
I have other large-size paper copies that I plan to digitize at the library. Since there are a limited number of copiers, I won’t plan on doing a huge stack of copies at one time. However, being able to access a large-size copier at no cost is going to be helpful in getting my genealogy files organized and digitized.
You never know what you might find at the library. Check it out.
Carol Stetser
Researcher