The Traveling Genealogist

Maryland Genealogy - Maryland State Archives

Maryland State Archives

Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse

State Archives Building

350 Rowe Boulevard, Annapolis, MD 21401

Guest Submitter: Garth Coombs

The Public search room is open Tuesday through Friday and most Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Archives is closed on Sundays, Monday, the First Saturday of every month, and Saturdays of holiday weekends.  

Records are pulled every half hour starting at 8:45 with the last pull of the day at 3:45. On Saturdays, due to limited staffing, the search room and microfilm  rooms remain open to the public between 11:30 and 1:30, but record pulls are not performed at 11:45, 12:15, 12:45 and 1:15.   

The Maryland State Archives is not an easy place to use. Except for card files and computers, all records, books, etc. must be requested through the Archivist’s desk and are delivered one at a time by searchers who bring books to your desk on the half hour.  Therefore 3 books took hours to get.  You can use a digital camera, but may not take a camera bag into the library. 

I wanted 3 books from the St. John’s College collection and had to get the St. John’s Librarian’s permission to view the books. All-in-all a slow process for researching.

Genealogy Research In Delaware

Delaware Public Archives

121 Duke of York Street

Dover DE

Mabel Lloyd Ridgely Research Room

 

Guest Submitter: Garth Coombs

 August, 2010 – The Archives is a little hard to find. It is located at the end of Court Street, next to the Legislature Building.  You must fill out a form to get into the Research Room and sign in once you are in.  They do not allow pens… pencils only.

 

The Archives holds a great collection of Delaware state records.  By their statement, it has more records than the Wilmington Historical Society, which was my original destination.

 

There is a card file of everybody.  Separate notebooks with orphans court records, land records, probate records, marriage, death, birth, cemeteries, insurance files.  All supported by microfilms.  More importantly, the Archivists are extremely helpful.  They gave us a complete tour of the facility and made excellent suggestions on looking at probate, and insurance records.

 

Based on the Archivist’s suggestion we found the 1855 will and probate record of my great, great grandfather.  Upon reading the will I found his two children by a first marriage, along with his daughters’ husband’s name.  I had found no record of them anywhere else. 

 

Also based on her suggestion, we found his home insurance record which gave a complete house description, including dimensions, attached kitchen, smoke house, crib, granary, stable, carriage house, pump, ash house, cart house, plus names of adjoining houses and factory.

All in all, if you have anyone in Delaware, it is a good place to visit.