Digital Libraries

In many cases, you can search for a keyword (title or subject)  to find state, county, city, town, church or family histories; directories; government documents; and biographies or autobiographies.

• American Memory (Library of Congress)
• Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (Library of Congress)
• Digital Quaker Collection (Earlham School of Religion)
• Documenting the American South (University of North Carolina)
• Family History Archive (Brigham Young University)
• Google Books (Author or Title Search)
• Internet Text Archive
• Making of America (Cornell University)
• Making of America (University of Michigan)
• The New York Times (from 1851)
• Perry-Castaneda Map Collection: Historical Maps (University of Texas)
• Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection (Cornell University)
  Useful for clergy, anti-slavery activists, African Americans, local history
• Their Own Words (Dickinson College)

Indexes

• Library of American Civilization Titles Available Free on the Web (Quinnipiac University)
• The Online Books Page (University of Pennsylvania)

By State or Region, A-Z

Be sure to check the state and county sites within the USGenWeb Project and the USGenWeb Archives for any county in which you are doing research.  They may contain digitized material or links to it. 

• Alabama
  • ADAH Databases (Alabama Department of Archives & History)
  • Alabama Mosaic
  • Historic Postcards of Alabama
• Alaska
  • Alaska's Digital Archives
  • Alaska's Gold Lode: A Database of Alaskan Primary Sources
• Appalachia
  • Appalachian Treasures Gateway
  • Archives of Appalachia
  • Digital Library of Appalachia
• Arizona
  • Arizona Genealogy Birth and Death Certificates
    PDF images of the original certificates of birth (1855-1932) and death (1844-1957)
  • Arizona State University Libraries Online Collections
  • Hayden Arizona Pioneer Biographies
  • Historical Photograph Collection at the Arizona State Archives
  • Little Cowpuncher: Rural School Newspaper of Southern Arizona
  • Southwest Electronic Text Center (University of Arizona Library) includes Books of the Southwest and selected Journal of Arizona History articles
  • Through Our Parents' Eyes: History & Culture of Southern Arizona
• California
  • Anne T. Kent California Room (Marin County Free Library)
    Digitized oral histories, photo albums, maps and more.
  • Calisphere (UC Libraries)
    Thousands of images and primary source documents, 19th-20th centuries.
  • Digital Anaheim (Anaheim Public Library)
  • Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
  • Online Archive of California
  • Regional Oral History Office (University of California, Berkeley)
  • Sacramento History Online
  • San Fernando Valley History Digital Library
  • San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection (SF Public Library)
  • San Joaquin Valley & Sierra Foothills Photo Heritage
  • University of California History Digital Archives
    Includes University of California In Memoriam.
• Colorado
  • Colorado's Historic Newspaper Collection
• Colorado Plateau
  • Colorado Plateau Digital Archives
• Connecticut
  • Colonial Connecticut Records, 1636-1776
  • Connecticut History Online
  • Quinnipiac's Digitized Connecticut History Books
  • Yale University Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database
• Florida
  • Florida History & Heritage Collection (Florida State University Libraries)
  • Florida Memory Project
  • PALMM: Publication of Archival, Library & Museum Materials
    Collections range from books and periodicals to the Sanborn Fire Maps for Florida cities.
• Georgia
  • Digital Library of Georgia
  • Georgia Historic Books
  • Georgia Historic Newspapers
  • Georgia's Virtual Vault: Digital Treasures from the Georgia Archives
    Death certificates, 1919-1927; Colonial wills; Confederate soldier information and much more.
  • The New Georgia Encyclopedia
• Great Lakes
  • Great Lakes Maritime History Project
• Illinois
  • The Argus Digital Collection (Illinois Wesleyan University)
    Issues of the student newspaper, 1894-2003.
  • Barrington Review Online
  • Digital Past
  • Encyclopedia of Chicago
  • Historical Maps Online
  • Homicide in Chicago 1870-1930 (Northwestern University)
  • Illinois Alive!
  • Illinois Digital Archives
  • Illinois Historical Digitization Projects
  • Illinois Periodicals Online
  • Illinois State Archives Databases
    Textual abstracts of land, servitude & emancipation, veterans and vital records.
• Indiana
  • Ball State University Digital Media Repository (Browse)
  • Hoosier Heritage Digital Library
  • Indiana Historical Society - Digital Image Collections
  • Indiana Magazine of History Online Index
  • Indiana-Related Datases & Indexes (Indiana State Library)
• Kansas
  • The Kansas Collection
  • Territorial Kansas Online
• Kentucky
  • Kentuckiana Digital Library
  • Kentucky Death Records [Index], 1911 through 2000
• Louisiana
  • LOUISiana Digital Library
• Maine
  • Maine Memory Network
  • Prism: University of Maine Yearbook Online (Fogler Library, University of Maine)
• Maryland
  • Archives of Maryland Online
  • Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage
• Massachusetts
  • Boston Streets: Mapping Directory Data
• Michigan
  • Archives of Michigan
  • The Making of Ann Arbor
  • Michigan County Histories and Atlases
  • Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910
  • Saline Area Historical Photos and Saline Valley Farms Photographs
  • Ypsilanti Historical Society Photo Archives
• Minnesota
  • Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910
• Mississippi
  • Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive (The University of Southern Mississippi Libaries)
• Missouri
  • Historic Missouri Newspaper Project
  • Missouri Digital Heritage Initiative
  • Missouri State Archives: Online Collections
    Some records (Birth & Death Records Database) are textual abstracts; others (Missouri Death Certificate Database) contain imaged records.
  • Missouri Valley Special Collections (The Kansas City Public Library)
  • Missouriana Digital Text Collection
• New England
  • The Cartographic Creation of New England
  • A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, Before 1692 (James Savage)
• New Jersey
  • Digital Library (Princeton Theological Seminary)
    • Biographical Catalogue of Princeton Theological Seminary, 1815-1954: Biographies, 1865-1954.  (1955)
    • Biographical Catalogue of the Princeton Theological Seminary, 1815-1932.  (1933)
  • New Jersey Digital Collections (New Jersey State Library)
  • New Jersey State Archives: Imaged Collections and Searchable Databases
  • Princeton Alumni Weekly Archives Online and PAW Memorials [1989-2008]
  • Princeton Alumni Weekly Memorial Index, 1894-2004 (Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library)
  • The Rutgers Oral History Archives
    The personal experiences of men and women who served on the home front and overseas in WW II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War.
  • Seeley G. Mudd Library - Databases (Princeton University)
  • West Jersey History Project
• New York
  • Brooklyn Daily Eagle Online, 1841-1902
  • Buffalo Full Text (BuffaloResearch.com)
  • The Digital Collections of Hamilton College Library
    The 117th New York Infantry Regiment; Civil War letters
  • New York State Historical Literature (Cornell University)
  • North Country Digital History
  • The Oneida Community Collection in the Syracuse University Library
  • Rediscovering New York: Find Records (New York State Archives)
    Web exhibitions, digital collections and more for a long list of subjects
  • Three Rivers, Hudson~Mohawk~Schoharie: History from America's Most Famous Valleys  ( Site Map )
• North Carolina
  • Davidson College Archives
  • Digital Durham
  • Digitized Versions of Books and Pamphlets with North Carolina Content (UNC Libraries)
  • Eastern North Carolina Digital Library (East Carolina University)
  • North Carolina ECHO, Exploring Cultural Heritage Online
  • Online Projects (North Carolina State Archives)
• Northwest
  • American Indians of the Pacific Northwest (University of Washington Libraries)
  • Center for Columbia River History
  • Columbia River Basin Ethnic History Archive
  • Scandinavian Immigrant Experience Collection (Pacific Lutheran University)  
• Ohio
  • The African American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920
  • Cleveland History Project
  • The Cleveland Memory Project
  • The Digital Shoebox Project: Historical Treasures of Southeastern Ohio
  • Early Ohio History Digital Collection
  • The Mid-Ohio Library Digital Initiative: Projects
  • Ohio History Central Online Encyclopedia
  • Ohio Memory: An Online Scrapbook of Ohio History
  • Photohio.org
  • Resources (The Ohio Historical Society) includes online primary sources and research tools
• Ohio River Valley
  • The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750-1820
• Oregon
  • Salem Online History (Salem Public Library)
• Pennsylvania
  • Archives Records Information Access System (Pennsylvania State Archives)
  • Chronicles: The Annals of Dickinson College
  • Historic Pittsburgh
  • Historical Digital Collegian Archive, 1887-1955 (Penn State)
  • Lincoln University Archives Digital Projects
  • PA's Past: Digital Bookshelf at Penn State
  • Penn in the Age of Franklin, 1740-1790
  • Pennsylvania Archives (Footnote)
    A free resource at this subscription site
  • Pennsylvania Civil War Newspapers
  • Pennsylvania County Histories and Pennsylvania Biographies (USGenWeb Archives, Pennsylvania)
  • Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies
  • PhillyHistory.org
  • The Valley of the Shadow
• Southeast
  • Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842
• Tennessee
  • Digital Collections from Tennessee Libraries, Archives, and Museums
  • Great Smoky Mountains Regional Project
  • Tennessee Civil War Sourcebook
  • Tennessee Documentary History, 1796-1850
  • The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
• Texas
  • The Portal to Texas History
• Utah
  • Sanborn® Fire Insurance Maps [Utah]
  • Utah Digital Newspapers
  • Utah State Archives Index Search
    Death certificates, 1905-1954, have been digitized.
• Virginia
  • The Library of Virginia, Multi-Catalog Search
    Note that the Archives and Manuscripts Catalog contains 6,000 family Bible records available online.
  • Oral Histories in the Perry Library (Old Dominion University)
  • The Valley of the Shadow
  • Virtual Jamestown
• Washington
  • Digital Collections (Central Washington University, Brooks Library)
  • Digital Collections (Everett Public Library)
  • Digital Collections (Washington State University Libraries)
  • Early Washington Maps: A Digital Collection
  • Tacoma Past & Present (Tacoma Public Library)
  • University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections
  • Yakima Memory
• The West
  • Trails to Utah and the Pacific: Diaries and Letters, 1846-1869
• West Virginia
  • The Allegheny Regional Family History Society
  • Hacker's Creek Pioneer Descendants
  • Marshall University Libraries: Digital Collections and Virtual Museum
  • Online Exhibits (West Virginia Division of Culture and History)
  • Vital Records Research Project (West Virginia Division of Culture and History)
    Images of birth, death & marriage records
  • West Virginia History Online Digital Collections
    Part of the West Virginia and Regional History Collection of the West Virginia University Libraries.
  • The Wheeling Area Genealogical Society
• Wisconsin
  • Dictionary of Wisconsin History
  • Digital Collections (University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Libraries)
  • Online Collections at the Wisconsin Historical Society
  • Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910
  • The State of Wisconsin Collection
  • University of Wisconsin Digital Collections
  • Wisconsin Electronic Reader
  • Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles (Wisconsin Historical Society)
  • Wisconsin Pioneer Experience
  • Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records
    Original field notes and plat maps.
• Wyoming
  • Wyoming Memory: A Digital Archive of Wyoming History

 

Other Resources

• African American Women Writers of the 19th Century (New York Public Library)
  52 works, including history, biography and autobiography
• American Friend Obituary Index (Earlham College Libraries)
• American Journeys
  Eyewitness accounts of early American exploration and settlement.
• Bibliographies Produced by the Digital Reference Team of the Library of Congress
• Books Online (American History & Genealogy Project)
• Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records
  Images of over two million Federal land patents issued between 1820 and 1908 for Eastern Public Land States.
• The Cherokee Phoenix (Hunter Library, Western Carolina University)
• E-Reference and E-Books and Manuscripts (Mystic Seaport Libraries)
  Includes digitized ship registers, crew list indexes, Connecticut ship database, Seamen's Protection Certificates register database, periodical indexes, etc.
• Freedom's Journal
  All 103 issues (1827-1829) of the first newspaper owned and operated by African Americans, digitized by the Wisconsin Historical Society. PDF format; requires Acrobat Reader.
• Google News Archive Search
  Retrieves digitized newspaper articles, which may require payment for access.
• Historical Maps Online
• Immigration to the United States, 1789-1930 (Harvard University Library)
• The North American Indian (Edward S. Curtis; 1907-1930)
  Northwestern University offers the entire 20-volume work and photogravure images.  The Library of Congress also offers the photographic images.
• NYPL Digital Gallery (New York Public Library)
• Polish Declarations of Admiration and Friendship for the United States (Library of Congress)
• Prints and Photographs Online Catalog (Library of Congress)
• The Silent Worker
  The issues from 1888 to 1929 of the national newspaper popular among the deaf population of the U.S.
• The Stars and Stripes: The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919
• United States Military Academy Digital Collections
• Veterans History Project (Library of Congress)
• Women Working, 1800 - 1930 (Harvard University Library)
• The WWI Document Archive

*Tips for Exploring a New Digital Library / Collection

Last revised: July 7, 2008