I was definitely not your stereotypical 12-year-old. By that, I mean I was probably the only preteen writing to the Immigration and Naturalization Service—this was long before the World Wide Web was a household fixture—requesting information on my Ukrainian great-grandparents. Ever since I was a child, I was always greatly interested in learning about my ancestors, both the boring ones—those that immigrated to the United States centuries ago from English-speaking Europe—and the cooler, more recent arrivals.

I realize that genealogical research has long been associated with the retiree demographic, something one’s grandparents might do in their free time, and not what today’s students would gravitate toward on their own initiative. But that is where the wonder of the required assignment comes in, and where budding amateur genealogists are made. As the great American novelist William Faulkner once said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” And that’s what I try to instill in the students I teach about the wonders and magic of genealogical research.

At Butler County Community College (BC3) in Butler, PA, the library is home to the multitude of databases one would expect at an institution of higher learning. But it also subscribes to Ancestry Library, something not many academic libraries do, let alone a fairly small one with a limited acquisitions budget. However, years ago, a faculty member in the college’s history department requested that the library acquire Ancestry Library to both complement and enhance an assignment she was having her students complete in her Modern American History class that would have them research their family tree, and which would account for a significant portion of their final grade. As she told me, students may have a passing interest in genealogy (at most) when they first learn of the assignment, but by the end, many have become totally immersed in it, with some even going so far as to continue beyond the assignment’s requirements and continuing their research on their own.

Since I started working as a librarian at BC3 in 2021, each semester I teach Ancestry Library to students in that Modern American History course, and this past spring I was asked to teach it to another class as well, this time with a different instructor. At the beginning of the class, I always ask, by a show of hands, how many have ever researched their family tree. And save for the odd student—almost always a nontraditional student, someone returning to the classroom to complete a degree they never finished or getting a degree now that their kids are grown—usually no hands are raised. But, I always tell myself, that’s okay. Because by the end of the class, I know that most will have an entirely different outlook.

While I feel the interface of Ancestry Library is fairly user-friendly, it still has myriad ways to explore and search: census records, vital records, immigration records, military records, and more. So I start each class by doing an extensive demo of its many offerings using my own ancestors as examples. Being the history nerd that I am, I naturally incorporate historical tidbits to accompany the various time periods being discussed. For example, before Ellis Island there was Castle Garden, at the southern tip of Manhattan, where newly arrived immigrants to the United States would be processed. Or, if your ancestor immigrated to the United States from a central or eastern European country prior to 1918, they most likely were listed as being “Austrian” in a ship’s manifest, since at that time they would have been considered subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire even if they were of Czech, Hungarian, or Ukrainian ethnicity; that Empire didn’t collapse until the end of World War I in 1918. My Ukrainian ancestors were listed as everything from Russian to Polish to Austrian.

It’s safe to say that most college students today, when they hear the word “radio,” are thinking of the satellite radio prevalent in most new cars—not the large, bulky piece of furniture that was the main source of home entertainment before the advent of the television set. I explain to the students that the 1930 U.S. census was groundbreaking because it was the first census to ask about a technological device in the home. I add that if your family owned its own radio set in 1930, during the Great Depression, you and your family were quite well off, since it hadn’t been sold to put food on the table. When, in today’s world, it seems that even the youngest children have their own smartphone, I know that for any Gen-Z student it’s hard to fathom the idea that an entire family owning one radio was an indicator of prestige—but it undoubtedly was.

Another indicator today’s college students take for granted, and that surprises many of them when looking at census records, is the matter of literacy. As academic librarians, one of our most important responsibilities is teaching information literacy, showing them how to discern between fake and real news, images, and more. But more than 100 years ago, literacy—the ability to read and write—was a dominant question on censuses. Between 1900 and 1915, more than 15 million immigrants arrived in the United States, roughly equal to the number of who had arrived in the previous 40 years combined; it’s referred to as the “heyday” of immigration. Immigrants from that period, my great-grandparents included, came from predominantly non-English-speaking countries, and many could not speak English—or even read or write in their native language. Census takers asked residents not only if they knew English, but also if they could read or write at all. When looking at certain census records, especially if the designated area was an immigrant enclave at one time, “no” is the dominant response as to whether they could read and write; for nativity and mother tongue, the majority of responses are neither “United States” nor “English.” U.S. education has long been compulsory for all, and something we accept at face value. But a century or more ago, this was not a legal entitlement, especially if a student happened to be female. Unlike First Lady Abigail Adams’s famous entreaty to her husband that he, and the rest of the men writing the laws of the new country, “remember the ladies,” young women were long excluded when it came to education. Some students are shocked to come across a document which features their ancestor’s mark in place of a signature if they were unable to read or write.

When it comes time to have the students start their own dig into their ancestors’ histories, many are amply supplied with information from their parents and grandparents, eager, and able to start researching their family’s story. But for others the task is much more difficult—namely those students who were more recent arrivals to the United States and whose relatives are still back in their country of origin where, depending on the location, the preservation of vital records can be challenged, if they exist at all, because of systemic poverty, poor civic infrastructure, or wartime situations. One student whose family came from Puerto Rico could trace her origins back to her grandparents but nothing further. When I was able to find one of her great-grandmothers, the student was shocked and overjoyed, since it meant another branch on her family tree had been found, including discovering names of previously unknown ancestors.

For Black students doing family research, I find myself offering historical context to the labels found in census records that, by today’s standards, are outdated and also mystifying or offensive. Although the U.S. Census has counted African Americans as a separate race since 1820, the way that they have been categorized and how they’ve been labeled has constantly changed. I find myself again playing the role of history teacher when I explain how it wasn’t until the 1870 census, the first following the end of the Civil War, that African Americans were finally included by name along with the rest of the population. Therefore, it served as the first official record of a surname for former slaves; before that, slaves were never named but rather were listed under their enslaver’s name. Even then, it was often the surname of their former enslavers, which presents additional roadblocks to Black students wanting to research their family histories.

And students who come across the 1890 census will see that “Black” wasn’t the only option for those who were African American. Race designations included “mulatto” (African Americans of mixed white and Black ancestry), “quadroon” (an African American with “one-fourth black blood”), and “octoroon” (someone with “one-eighth or any trace of black blood”). Although President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation more than 25 years earlier, this was yet another way in which African Americans continued to be identified as second-class citizens.

As academic librarians, when it comes to genealogical research, we are doing what we were trained for: assisting our student patrons to find the information they need. If your public library subscribes to Ancestry Library or a similar database, such as MyHeritage Library Edition, I encourage you to think outside the box when it comes to programming—don’t just hold a workshop during regular business or school hours when your attendee demographic is most likely going to be made up of retirees. Hold a session on a weeknight—or, if your library is open on the weekend, hold one then as well to attract a larger, potentially more age-diverse crowd, because there could be another 12-year-old kid eager to dive into her family’s past.

Too often in both libraries and society as a whole, we wrongly, perhaps unfairly, imagine that certain age groups are averse to trying new things. We often assume that older adults are averse to technology when, for example, when I was in another librarian position, classes I taught at a senior care home on using iPads were regularly filled to the maximum. The same goes for young people and genealogical research. While it may “begin” as a required assignment, genealogy often transcends mandatory work to become far more meaningful. As librarians, that’s all we can ask for when it comes to helping patrons—not to mention, it’s one of the greatest rewards.

Julia Tulba works as a Reference and Instruction Librarian at Butler County Community College in Butler, PA.