Holidays and Family History

The holidays are the perfect time to start researching your family history. With family members gathered together, you should take the opportunity to collect information about their lives and discover what information they already know about your ancestry.

Begin your research by collecting old photographs, newspaper clippings, bibles, and family papers. Share these items with your family. Sharing these family heirlooms offer an ideal way to get family members to start reminiscing See if anyone can identify who is in the photographs. Ask if any other relatives have family items or heirlooms that they would be willing to share with you as you start your research.

Interview family members. Share stories together and record or write everything down. You're looking for more than just birth, marriage, and death dates--although, that information is extremely important. You also want family stories. If you can, try and record these discussions on your phone or computer.

Don't put off talking to your relatives! They're one of your best sources of information.

After you've collected some basic information, come to the library and we can help you further your research!

Christmas in Glenview 1995

I found a great seasonal book in the Genealogy & Local History Room: The Best Christmas Decorations in Chicagoland by Mary Edsey. It was published in 1995 and features photos and addresses of the best places to see holiday decorations in the city of Chicago and the surrounding area.

The book includes two houses from Glenview: the Dorband house on Glenview Road and the Olsowski house on Huber Lane. The Olsowski's PVC pipe Christmas tree is a featured photograph.


Come by the Genealogy & Local History Room to peruse The Best Christmas Decorations in Chicagoland. There are lots of fun photographs and stories of holiday traditions from around the area. Most of the photographs are from the nineties but there are stories and pictures going back to the fifties!