Discover Washington’s Past—Without Going Far
by Cary Ann Siegfried
You don’t have to be a serious genealogist to enjoy digging into local history. Maybe you’ve wondered who lived in your house 100 years ago. Maybe you’re trying to identify a relative in an old photograph, find an obituary, learn more about a downtown building, or settle a family debate about something that happened in Washington decades ago.
A good place to start is the Genealogy & Local History page on the Washington Public Library website. We’ve gathered a growing collection of resources there that can help you explore both your family’s history and the history of our community.
Start with the experts: Washington County Genealogical Society
The Washington County Genealogical Society maintains an extensive collection of genealogical and local history materials in the Grayson Archives on the lower level of the Library. The Society and the Library are separate organizations, but having the collection right here in the Library makes it a wonderful resource for local researchers.
The collection includes local family histories, cemetery records and many other materials that you aren’t likely to find through a simple Google search. Some other popular items include old City of Washington City Directories and yearbooks from local high schools.
Not sure where to begin—or researching Washington County from hundreds of miles away? Genealogical Society volunteers can also conduct research for you. The current research fee is $10 per hour, with photocopies available for 25 cents per page, plus postage when needed.
Ancestry at the Library
You may already be familiar with Ancestry, the popular subscription genealogy website. What you may not know is that the Library provides access to Ancestry Library Edition while you are in the Library.
Ancestry Library Edition gives researchers access to many of the same historical records found through a personal Ancestry subscription—including census records, birth, marriage and death records, immigration records, military records, directories and much more.
There are some important differences. Ancestry Library Edition is designed for research in libraries rather than for maintaining your own personal family tree. You won't have all of the personalized features of a regular Ancestry account, and access is available only while you are at the Library. But if your main goal is searching historical records, it can be an incredibly useful resource—and there is no subscription charge to you.
Read the news from decades ago
Want to know what Washington residents were reading in 1935? Looking for a wedding announcement, obituary, business advertisement, high school sports story—or just curious what was happening around town during the year you were born?
The Southeast Iowa Digital Archive provides free online access to digitized newspapers from Washington County and the surrounding area, including many years of the Washington Evening Journal. Because the newspapers are searchable, you can look for a family name, business, address, organization or event and see what turns up.
See Washington through the newspaper photographer’s lens
Newspapers tell our community's story in words, but photographs tell another part of that story.
The Library is currently building the Washington Evening Journal Photo Archive, a digital collection of photographs taken by WEJ photographers. Eventually, the collection will include photographs spanning 1957 through 2004. At the moment, our digitization work has reached 1966, with thousands more negatives still waiting their turn.
These aren't just photographs of major news events. They document everyday community life—schools, businesses, organizations, celebrations, sports, construction, local personalities and ordinary moments that otherwise might have disappeared from view. While many of these photos were published in the newspaper, others were never published and may have never been seen by anyone other than the photographer.
Try searching for a family name, a business, a school or an organization. You never know who—or what—you might find.
Research the history of a Washington building
Curious about the building where your favorite downtown business is located? Own an older home on Washington's west side?
Our local history page also provides access to research and photographs created as part of historic preservation projects involving the Washington Downtown Historic District and Westside Residential Historic District.
The Downtown Historic District materials include Iowa Site Inventory forms and photographs prepared during a 2011–2012 research, survey and nomination project funded through a Historic Resource Development Program grant from the State Historical Society of Iowa. Buildings are indexed by address, making it easy to look up a particular property.
Similar resources are available for the Westside Residential Historic District, providing a fascinating starting point for homeowners—or anyone interested in Washington's architecture and changing neighborhoods.
Explore Iowa history beyond Washington County
You'll also find a link to the State Historical Society of Iowa, whose collections and online resources can help take your research beyond Washington County. Statewide historical records, photographs, documents and research tools can help fill in the gaps when your family—or your research—takes you elsewhere in Iowa.
What will you discover?
Local history doesn't have to mean writing a family genealogy or doing academic research. Use these resources to:
Find the newspaper announcement from your grandparents' wedding.
Learn what businesses once occupied a downtown storefront.
Research the history of your house.
Look for photographs of a parent or grandparent when they were young.
Find out what was happening in Washington on the day you were born.
Research a local organization, school, church or business.
Track down an obituary or cemetery record.
Browse old newspapers simply for the fun of seeing advertisements, prices, fashions and community news from another era.
And sometimes the most interesting discoveries are the ones you weren't looking for in the first place.
Visit the Library's Genealogy & Local History page and start exploring. Washington has more stories to tell—and we're working to make more of them easier to find.
