{"id":103837,"date":"2025-08-11T09:22:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T13:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/?p=103837"},"modified":"2025-08-11T09:23:04","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T13:23:04","slug":"university-archives-for-genealogy-research-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/university-archives-for-genealogy-research-yes.html","title":{"rendered":"University Archives for Genealogy Research? Yes!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction:<\/em><\/strong> In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega describes a helpful genealogy resource often overlooked by family historians: genealogical records in local university or college archives. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear a presentation and view documents at the University of Pittsburgh Archives at Hillman Library. I\u2019ve always been a big fan of university archives. They can hold such unique local history collections.<\/p>\n

This event was a good reminder of the importance of academic archives for genealogists. Family historians can search academic archive catalogs in the location their ancestor lived to discover valuable family history-related records.<\/p>\n

Ancestral Records? They Have That!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Academic archives will have various collections including documents, records, and other materials that document the history of the academic institution. For those with family who attended, taught, or worked at the university, this can be a gold mine of materials documenting the individual and their time there.<\/p>\n

But what else do these archives have? Can academic archives be valuable for those researchers whose family was not associated with that university?<\/p>\n

For many family historians it will be surprising to learn that an academic institution may have genealogically relevant records. Academic archives not only document their immediate community, but they also hold the records for the larger location. While they may not see themselves as a genealogical repository, records that document people are genealogically relevant records.<\/p>\n

For example, in the case of the University of Pittsburgh Archives, they have Alleghany County birth and death records from 1870-1905.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot:
Screenshot: Guide to the Allegheny County, Pa., Dept. of Public Health Birth and Death Records, 1870-1905, AIS.1975.06, Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System. Credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Archives create \u201cFinding Aids\u201d to help researchers know more about the collection.<\/p>\n

In this case, the Finding Aid<\/a> helps the researcher understand the history of the records, what information can be found on the records, and even where some of the records reside digitally.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot:
Screenshot: finding aid description of birth and death records for Allegheny County, Pa., Dept. of Public Health Birth and Death Records, 1870-1905, University of Pittsburgh Library System. Credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While vital records are the most obvious genealogical type of record, many other types of records exist at an academic archive that shed light on families. University of Pittsburgh archivist David Grinnell showed us yearbooks, a prison mug book, a musician\u2019s diary, a deed, and employment records. In most cases, searching the catalog for a name isn\u2019t enough. You need to consider what your ancestors could have been or were involved in and where.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s More than One Catalog<\/strong><\/p>\n

Academic archives have items stored onsite and digitized online. Because of this, consider that there may be more than one online catalog for the archive. For example, University of Pittsburgh\u2019s catalogs include Historic Pittsburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot:
Screenshot: Historic Pittsburgh. Credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The catalog explains:<\/p>\n

\u201cHistoric Pittsburgh comprises primary and secondary sources about the greater Pittsburgh region, including a wide range of publications, maps, manuscripts, visual images, and audio-video materials, that support personal and scholarly research.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of the archive\u2019s collections found here is their directory collection described as:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Directories collection contains directories published between 1815 and 1945 by J.F. Diffenbacher and R.L. Polk & Company. While most of the directories cover Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, a portion includes Homestead and nearby boroughs.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another digital collection catalog that the University of Pittsburgh Archives has is their ULS Digital Collections<\/a> catalog that has over 200,000 items and can be browsed by topics. A search on the word \u201cgenealogy\u201d in this catalog brought up over 800 results including genealogy charts, diaries, family histories, and family papers.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot:
Screenshot: search results for the keyword \u201cgenealogy,\u201d University of Pittsburgh Library System. Credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University Archives for Genealogy Research? Yes!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Think about the universities located near your ancestor\u2019s home. Those institutions may have records that pertain to your genealogy. In some cases, it might be surprising, like vital records. In other cases, it might be records that document their community, church, or workplace. At any rate, don\u2019t neglect to search the online catalogs for the local university archives as you research your ancestors\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n

Explore your family history by creating your free account<\/a> at GenealogyBank for 7 days, because every life deserves to be remembered, recorded, and rediscovered.<\/p>\n

Note on the header image<\/em><\/strong>: birth record, University of Pittsburgh Library System. Credit: Gena Philibert-Ortega.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gena Philibert-Ortega describes a genealogy resource often overlooked by family historians: genealogical records in university or college archives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":103853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[59131,2719,59130],"class_list":["post-103837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-college-archives","tag-genealogy-search-tips","tag-university-archives"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/photo-0811-2025-featured-graphic-birth-record.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103837"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103854,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103837\/revisions\/103854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}