Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Today, with so many people interested in discovering their history and family roots, most turn to the internet. Some folks in Coryell County may not realize there are amazing sources of information in the genealogy room at the Gatesville Public Library.
The room, dedicated to the memory of the parents of Georgia Grubb Creel, Myrtle and Thomas Grubb, was opened in June 2013. The library has always had a genealogy section, but it wasn’t housed in one specific room until a larger children’s room was added to the library and the genealogy section was moved into the old children’s room.
According to the library’s director, Faye Nichols, “probably an average of four to five people per week use the room for genealogy research.” Nichols said the room also gets used for other purposes such as studying, tutoring and small meetings.
Those visiting the room will find a vast collection of local history information, which includes family histories, cemetery records, census records, delayed birth and death records, marriage records and much more. In addition to their print collection, the library subscribes to Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com which are available to the general public to utilize. They also have a Texas reference section as well and general geographical genealogy information.
The Grubb Genealogy Room receives not only local patrons, but visitors from all over Texas as well as the entire country. Earlier this month, the genealogy room’s guestbook was signed by Vasily Karmenchenkov, who wrote that he was visiting from the Russian Federation.
In cooperation with the Gatesville Public Library, the Coryell County Genealogical Society, which was formed in 1979, plays an enormous role in association with the library. According to a genealogical society official, Sherry Lawrence, “We are now scanning our obituary file to an external hard drive to make the collection more accessible and provide more options for the public to copy the material. The hard drive will be available at the library desk and can be used with any of the library computers.”
According to Lawrence, another project that the genealogical society is planning is to scan updated Coryell County cemetery records to a hard drive. These updated records will include tombstone photos and burial location diagrams for six Coryell County cemeteries. The updated cemeteries are Bethel, Station Creek, Davidson, Seaton, Oak Grove, and Prairie View.
Lawrence said that their plans also include scanning the loose documents located in the library’s vertical files to the hard drive.
More information about the Grubb Genealogy Room and the Coryell County Genealogical Society can be obtained by calling the library at 254-865-5367 or visiting the Gatesville Public Library at 111 N. 8th St.
