Genealogy & Family History: Other Types of Material

Historic Photographs
Special Collections (basement of Allen Library South) has an extensive collection of Pacific Northwest photographs. Thousands have been digitized and are available via the UW Libraries Digital Collections. For other image collections see Image Databases & Resources.

Local History Journals
The UW Libraries has a strong collection of journals published by state and regional historical societies. Examples include the Kansas Historical Quarterly, The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal and the California Historical Society Quarterly. In addition, the UW Libraries as an extensive collection of history journals including major historical journals from Western Europe and Asia.

Use the research databases America History & Life and Historical Abstracts to identify articles published in these journals. See the History Research Guide for additional databases.

Manuscript Collections
Unpublished records of local organizations and individuals can be found in Special Collections. The collection includes papers of pioneers and early settlers, local civic leaders and organizations, and ethnic communities such as the Japanese, Jewish and Scandinavian. A growing collection of finding aids to these collections are available online. Additional manuscript collections are available in the UW Libraries on microfilm including the Church Missionary Society Archive and segments of the Immigrant in America.

Maps and Atlases
The Map Collection (ground floor Suzzallo Library) is the premier cartographic collection in the state with over 250,000 map sheets, 80,000 aerial photographs and 2,000 atlases both contemporary and historic.

Newspapers
The UW Libraries Microform & Newspaper Collections has hundreds of newspapers on microfilm with especially strong holdings in Northwest newspapers such as the Oregonian (back to 1861) and Anacortes American (back to 1890). In addition, the UW Libraries has complete runs of major U.S. newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune (back to 1849) and selected runs of international papers. Digitized newspaper databases include the New York Times,  Times of London (1785-1985) and Los Angeles Times (1881-1985).