Digitized Genealogy Resources Help Residents Trace Their Lineages
Preserving History: Digitizing Genealogy

05/29/21

By: I. S.

The Library gets more than 200 questions about family histories ever year. Patrons are looking to shed light on their story, to learn where they came from and possibly discover a long-lost relative. Family records can also tell the story of a community’s local history.

To help them find the answers, the Miami-Dade Public Library System is providing online access to part of its Genealogy Collection including its Surname Files, folders with family records.

There are hundreds of these folders, with items including familial newsletters, newspaper clippings and family trees, that in some cases date back to the 1800s. Using this resource can help an individual learn about their ancestors, where they lived and what they did.

Often the information was collected and donated to the Library by someone with either a connection to the family or South Florida, but the information can come from and relate to anywhere in the country.

The process of making it accessible is time consuming, requiring the Digital Collections division to spend hundreds of hours scanning all the materials. Currently, all of the “A” files have been scanned.

Here are some examples of what you can find within the Genealogy collection.

Newspaper Clippings

These newspaper clippings range from 1900-2000 and from many different geographic locations. They can be obituaries or articles about living people, which can provide insights into their lives and list their family members.

Washed ashore 200 years ago, child leaves enduring legacy
2000-08-06
mdplflage202101050004

Charlotte Bowe, a light and an inspiration!
1987-07-16
mdplflage202103180003

Family Name Newsletters

Family newsletters are pamphlets published by associations for people with the same or similar family names. They are an invaluable resource for genealogical research because the members write in detail about their own family histories. The information in the newsletter can include biographies and information from other genealogy collections. If you are interested in your family history, it might be fun to search for an organization dedicated to collecting and distributing information about people with your last name.

Ballew Family Journal: Number 30
2010-06
mdplflage202101220002

The Barney Family News: No. 48
1990-12
mdplflage202102050003

Voter Registers

Voter registers from the 1700s to the early 1900s are important resources in the Genealogy collection. These are lists of the eligible voters within a city during a specific year. The below example contains the voter register for the city of Miami in 1896. These registers help people locate where their ancestors lived, which can help focus research to a specific place. Here is an interesting fact: These registers sometimes serve as supporting evidence that a person was either a loyalist or a patriot during the Revolutionary War, according to one of our Special Collections librarians.

Transcripts of the proceedings of the meeting held July 28, 1896 for incorporation of the City of Miami
Cover & Page 007
1896-07-28
mdplflage202003120001

Family Trees

A Family Tree is a chart representation of one person or one couple’s family that branches out like a tree. These family trees are often donated by patrons who have done the research to trace their own family trees and want that research to be available to others building their own family trees.

The first picture that follows is of a family tree. This is a very pretty one, but not all of them have decorative features. Some family trees only list names.

On the other hand, family histories can detail information about many members of a specific family. Below, you can see two examples of family histories for two very important Miami families: The Budge Families of Miami, Florida, pioneers who lived in the still developing city back in the early 1900s, and The Brickells of Brickell Point-Brickell Avenue, who moved here in 1871 and lent their name to a well-known area of the city.

Our Family Tree
1975
mdplflage202102120001

The Budge Families of Miami, Florida
1979-06
mdplflage202104060003

The Brickells of Brickell Point-Brickell Avenue
1977-04
mdplflage202103240003