Wichita Public Library

WGS is an affiliate of the Wichita Public Library (WPL), providing both volunteers that help create indexed records and acquisitions to help both the library and family historians. WGS holds its monthly meetings at the conference center at the WPL’s Advanced Learning Library (ALL).

The Edward & Elizabeth Burns Historical Research Pavilion holds more than 23,000 genealogy books and magazines covering the entire United States, with an emphasis on Kansas and the Great Plains. Highlights of the collection include an extensive military collection with over 1,600 volumes on the Civil War, Native American records (including the Dawes Rolls), immigrant summaries such as Germans to America, and numerous newspapers on microfilm.

The Research Pavilion is on the upper level of the ALL, the central hub of the Wichita public libraries. Located at 711 W. 2nd in Wichita, just west of the Arkansas River at 2nd and McLean.

Did you know you can search the Wichita Library catalog of library books from your home or office?  Try Search the Catalog.

Microfilm

A large collection of microfilm is available, including many census records, newspapers, Dawes Indian rolls, and other resources. Most of census records have been digitized and are available via online services such as Ancestry.com.

The newspapers include the Wichita Eagle, Beacon, and many small papers from Kansas. These can help the researcher find specific stories that help build a story around ancestral history or document events such as death. In addition, a large collection of the New York Times is on microfilm.

The WGS has donated two digital microfilm readers to the library, allowing you to make copies of images and save them to your removable thumb drive (don't forget to bring one).

Online Databases

The library provides many genealogy research databases for library members use.  These include:

These are library editions, and may not include all the features of a paid service. You must have a library card number to access these resources. Once you login to a library computer, click on Research Tools, and then select  Local History & Genealogy.

Then click on LOCAL HISTORY AND GENEALOGY,  and then GENEALOGY.

Events

The Library produces many programs for people of all ages and interests. Check out their Events page. You will find the WGS upcoming programs along with many other learning opportunities.