A fantastic find in a museum archive

Genealogy Gems Contributing Editor Sunny Morton shares this example of a family history treasure found buried in a museum’s archive:

“My mom Cheryl McClellan (a professional genealogy librarian who was interviewed by Lisa Louise Cooke in the Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast episode #125), visited the Steelworks Center of the West in Pueblo, Colorado with her siblings to get a better sense of the industry that employed her family there.

Imagine her glee when she discovered that the museum has an archive! According to its website, the collections include ‘over 100,000 photographs, more than 150 films, 30,000 maps and drawings, hundreds of ledgers, and internal publications such as Camp and Plant, The Industrial Bulletin, and The Blast. These are in addition to the core collection of approximately 6,000 cubic feet of records documenting CF&I’s steel production, iron and coal mining, geological records, labor relations, land and water resources, employee records, invoices and work orders, executive memoranda, correspondence, and much more, documenting every aspect of the company’s rich history.’

Unfortunately, my mom didn’t have time to stay and explore the archive in-depth. But she started corresponding with the archivist, who sent her priceless documents relating to her grandfather, John Felix. Among these was a copy of his original application for employment, his employee service record and a clipping from an employee newsletter about his exploits as a fisherman:

Sunny’s Mom: Cheryl McClellan,
Professional Genealogy Librarian

How to find museums with archives

You can look for museums with archives in them in a few different ways:

1. When visiting a local museum, ask the curator or museum director if they have any records available for research in their collections.
2. Go to the websites of museums–especially historical museums–you may have visited in the past. See whether they mention having an archive or research room.
3. Google the name of your ancestor’s town (or a bigger city nearby), along with the state name, and add the search term museum.
4. Contact a librarian, archivist, or the Chamber of Commerce in your ancestor’s town. 
5. Use the free website, ArchiveGrid, to locate archival collections at museums. On the home page, you’ll find a map that looks something like this:

Use the map view to identify archival collections, some of which may be housed in museums, near your ancestors’ home. Hover over the red markers to see the names of institutions. Click on them to find contact information and search their collections. Once you have located the museum, contact them by phone or email and ask them about their archived records. If you can’t visit in person–or you can’t stay long enough to really search their collections–start corresponding with the archivist, as Sunny’s mom did. You may need to be patient: many archivists only work part-time and stay quite busy. But your patience may be rewarded beautifully!

As genealogists, we will search anywhere and everywhere for records about our ancestors to help tell their life story: archives, libraries, historical societies, genealogical societies, and museums! So, the next time you travel to where your ancestors came from, check and see if there is a museum. If there is one, stop by and ask if they have a “back room” with archived records. You just might be pleasantly surprised.