OPEN HOUSE TO ATTRACT GENEALOGY BUFFS TO CAPE PUBLIC LIBRARY

They come from just across town or as far as Indiana, but all of them are searching for something.

They're looking inside the Cape Girardeau Public Library for their great-great-grandfather or another relative, even though the family members are nothing more than names on census records or in church minutes.

"I think people have a basic need to find their roots," Betty Martin, adult services coordinator for the library, said. "I have an 8-year-old daughter who wants to know the names of her great-grandparents and where they came from. She asked me to look up our family history while I was at work."

Thanks to a $5,000 donation from Allene Groves in 1981, the Genealogy Resource Center at the library is a good place to begin family detective work. Groves continued to donate money each year until her death, resulting in a large center with thousands of books and microfilm reels.

Area history buffs can visit the center from 2-3 p.m. Sunday during an open house. Library research specialists will be on hand to answer questions and demonstrate how to use any materials.

Most of the people who come to the center have traced their family history to Cape Girardeau. Census records reveal if a member was born, died or got married here.

Some of the records in the center date back to the 1600s. The library boasts a book of minutes from the first permanent Protestant church west of the Mississippi River. It also houses records from the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Daughters of the American Colonists.

Elizabeth Ader, library director, said people from five surrounding states spend hours, weeks and even years visiting the genealogy center. Some take lengthy vacations to travel across the United States or even the world looking for tidbits of information.

"They love it when they find out something unusual about their families," Ader said.

The Cape Girardeau Public Library, along with Riverside Regional Library in Jackson, are good places to start for people who want to find their roots. The Cape Girardeau library features books on getting started in genealogy and includes a surname file so researchers can contact possible relatives. It keeps genealogists from doing the same work twice, Ader said.

While the budget for more genealogy materials is small, Ader said, some people make memorial donations in the names of loved ones who enjoyed the center. They sometimes ask what materials are needed.

That is part of the reason the library will conduct the open house for the genealogy center Sunday. Staff members want to ask local history buffs what materials they want to see in the center.

People already have asked for more records about the Cherokee nation, since the Trail of Tears passes through this area.

Also, the library staff reorganized the center to allow for wheelchair access. In the process, they filed all the books by the Dewey Decimal System, making them simpler to find. The open house will allow people to acquaint themselves with the new system.