About 1853 my 4th great-grandparents, John and Margaret Lawbaugh, migrated West from Ohio to Illinois. They and many of their children settled in and around Geneseo, Illinois. My 2nd great-grandfather, William Henry Lawbaugh was the next ancestor to leave the area in the late 1880’s. I have a lot of research I want to do in this town!
I recently found myself at the Geneseo Public Library website. I will admit I was having a random genealogy tangent moment and was not planning to check this website. I have been here before and seen the extensive listing of genealogy materials the library holds. I would love to take a genealogy vacation and hole up in the library to comb the materials.
This time I visited the website, I noticed a link to “digitized local newspaper.” There are ten city and county newspapers that have been digitized and posted to the website. The newspapers span 1856-1977! The best part is that the database is searchable!
I did a search for my family using just the surname Lawbaugh. The results page includes 211 hits from three newspapers over a 100 year period. I am so excited about all the research I have on my to-do list!!
If anyone has ancestors from Geneseo, Illinois, I highly suggest visiting the Geneseo Public Library website and taking full advantage of the great resources there.
