Footnote, an outstanding subscription database available only at the Grand Rapids Main Library, is aimed at creating and sustaining an online community of users, researchers that discover genealogical records, interact with one another, and share information on common ancestors.

Now totaling more than 53 million images, much of Footnote’s content is culled from the collections of the U.S. National Archives and available online for the first time. The resulting product is a delightful mix of historical and genealogical gold.

Perhaps your ancestor wrote a pro-Left Letter to the Editor and was investigated by the FBI, served overseas in Russia following the First World War, or petitioned the U.S. government for property damage sustained during the Civil War. Find out at Footnote!

Above is the FBI case file of one Viva Flaherty who was being investigated here in Grand Rapids in 1918. Her charge was the “circulating of literature for the purpose of preventing young men from registering for the conscription act”.

Filed under: Databases, Local History, Research
Tags: Databases, Genealogy, Local History
by tgleisne on August 8, 2009