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I stood outside the building in aware. I joined the Society last year when I stopped by their booth at the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Springfield, IL last year. I didn’t think I’d be able to actually come and do research. What an opportunity! The building had been there over 100 years, I felt so honored. As old as it looked outside, the inside was all marble walls, floors, stairs and balconies. Beautifully constructed and maintained.
Now, down to business. I went to the reference desk and asked for help. A very nice student gave me a payment card so I could load it with money to use when printing copies. She then took me around and showed me where the microfilm and readers were; how to load the film, print a page, etc. This was so cool. To get a copy of a document from home would have cost me $15 per document. Here, it was only 10¢. After a while, I was loading microfilm onto the reader, printing copies, rewinding the film and loading another with practiced rhythm. I had to reload my payment card numerous times. Here were all the documents I needed on my Ramminger ancestors from both Clark and Sheboygan counties.
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The next day I finished up with the microfilms and asked for help looking for city directories. I again got excellent help from one of the librarians. I had to take a tiny elevator (I think it was as old as the building) down a couple of floors to the “stacks.” The air smelled old and dank; lighting wasn’t much better either. I seemed to be the only one down there, kind of “creepy,” but I just stayed away from those thoughts. I found the city directories and only brought one up with me. I used the flatbed scanner and was able to save the images from the book to my flash drive.
I next asked for help with finding plat maps of my ancestor’s farms in Clark and Sheboygan counties. Those I had to go to the Archives on a different floor, and since it was after 4 p.m., I’d have to wait until the next day. Boo hoo! We were leaving the next morning, what was I to do?
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After seeing my ancestor’s names on the plat maps I got a better understanding of who they were. In Clark County, I found that not only did my great-grandfather have a farm but I also saw where my grandfather Henry and his Brother John’s farms were located too.
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