HANCEVILLE, Ala. – Wallace State Community College’s family and regional history collection helps people across the country, and some people in foreign lands, in researching their genealogy and local legacies. Several authors have used its resources.
Robin Sterling, creator of numerous books on Cullman and surrounding counties’ cemetery records, Confederates, newspaper abstracts and more has just published his long-anticipated “Tales of Old Cullman County, Alabama,” a sequel to his similar book on Blount County. The book is a collection of documented historical essays on events, people and places that made Cullman County.
Robert S. Davis, who conducts the genealogy collection at Wallace State, said every county should have a book like this one. It has documented historical essays from beginnings with Baltimore and Abraham Stout to the Grotto. The book cuts off at around 1940. Sterling’s books are available through Lulu.com and Amazon.
Wallace State’s genealogy and local history program has articles, books, files, indexes and microfilm (county records and newspapers) about Cullman and neighboring counties. Cullman County people also appear in the collection’s broader holdings on Alabama (and other states), Civil War soldiers, family history files, Native Americans and newspaper databases, etc.
The program is currently forming a Cullman County area archive where visitors will loan their historic photographs for scanning. The genealogy collection is free and open to help individuals with family research in the basement of the Wallace State Library Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-9 p.m. (the staff leaves at 4:30 p.m.); Friday, 7:30 p.m.-2 p.m.; and Saturday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m.
Davis offers continuing education classes on researching family history. Each class will be on a Wednesday and a consecutive Thursday from 5-9 p.m. They include Genealogy (including computers and book publishing): Sept. 25-26 and Feb. 5-6; and Southern Research/Confederate Research Oct. 23-23 and March 18-19.
For more information, contact Amanda Aris, Amanda.aris@wallacestate.edu.
