19 At The Library: Treasures From The Stacks

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 19 – May 6, 2025

Prompt: At the Library

Ancestor Focus: Wells McCool, My Paternal 3rd Great Grandfather.

During a recent genealogy road trip, I visited two incredible libraries: the St. Louis County Library and the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. My goal going in was to look for Quaker Monthly Meeting Minutes and ship manifests. But like so much in genealogy, plans evolved. Here’s what I uncovered between the stacks.

St. Louis County Library – St. Louis, Missouri

Entrance to the Genealogy Center

The Clark Family Branch of the St. Louis County Library boasts a massive genealogy collection, in the Emerson History and Genealogy Center on the second floor. 125,000 items are shelved by state and county. 

Lawrence Co., MO books

I focused on Lawrence County, Missouri, where my Crull and Lent ancestors lived in 1870. With 25 books to review, I checked indexes for burials, marriages, newspapers, churches, and more. 

I found one new record: the 1886 marriage of my great-grand uncle, John Franklin Crull, to Mattie Tolivar. I also photographed a map of the county townships from 1879 and a reference to the Lawrence County Historical Society in Mt. Vernon—definitely a spot to visit on a future trip. I wish I had snapped a picture of my friend Linda, seated on the floor of the stacks with a small fortress of books around her!

Allen County Public Library (ACPL)– Fort Wayne, Indiana

Entrance to ACPL

ACPL’s Genealogy Center ranks among the top in the country. After joining a helpful tour, I quickly shifted my attention from ship records to their powerful Periodical Source Index (PERSI). There, I found treasures for the Nolen, McCorkle, and Lent branches of my maternal line—articles ranging from Revolutionary War pensions to regional family histories. 

A few favorites included"

• A Revolutionary War pension summary for my 4th great-grandfather, Shadrack Nolen

• Bible records, biographies, and family studies for various McCorkle lines

• Lent family histories in Dutch colonial records from 17th-century New York

Union Monthly Meeting Books

Later, I returned to my original quest—tracking down Quaker meeting minutes for Union Monthly Meeting in Miami County, Ohio. After a bit of a wild goose chase through opposite ends of the library, a librarian and I finally found the nine oversized books I was searching for. 

Most were too faint to read or outside my time frame, but one entry stood out. It confirmed that Wells McCool, who had a civil marriage to Anne Coate, had later been disowned by the Quakers for marrying outside the discipline. His offering of apology was eventually accepted—but not until three years after the wedding. The mystery of that delay still nags at me.

Reflections

I walked into both libraries with specific research goals. I walked out with new records, new leads, and a deeper appreciation for the dedication of librarians who know exactly how to help when you’re looking for a surname you can barely spell. My road trip was a reminder that sometimes the greatest discoveries come not from what you planned—but from what you found when you got there.