B&ECPL’s Family History Day May 18th

The Buffalo & Erie County Public Library will host its second annual Fam ily History Day event on Saturday, May 18th from 1:00-3:30 p.m. at the down town Central Library, 1 Lafayette Square, Buffalo. The event is the first of three informative programs presented by the Library’s Grosvenor Room that focus on genealogy, local history, and research.

May 18th, local urban planner Angela Keppel will dis cuss her popular blog, Discovering Buffalo, One Street at a Time, at 1:15 p.m. in the Library’s Ring of Knowledge. Keppel’s blog works to uncover the stories behind the names of Buffalo streets. At 1:45 p.m., genealogist Jeanette Sheliga will demonstrate how to use the digitalized Sanborn Maps of New York database for genealogy research.

Following a panel discussion at 2:15 p.m., participants can take a “Secrets of the Stacks” tour with Librarian and genealogy specialist Rhonda Hoffman to discover additional re sources the Library can of fer researchers. Western New York Genealogical Society volunteers will also be on on-site in the Grosvenor Room from 12:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. to assist and answer general questions.

Several local history organizations will participate with information tables, including the Buffalo Genealogical Society of the African Diaspora; Buffalo His tory Museum; Buffalo Irish Genealogical Society; Centro Culturale Italinao di Buffalo; Friends of Concordia Cemetery; Italian Genealogical Society; Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor; Polish Genealogical Society of New York State; and the Tonawanda Kenmore Historical Society.