Using the Congressional Serial Set for Genealogical Research By
Jeffery Hartley (This article appeared in the Spring 2009 issue
of Prologue. It has been excerpted and reprinted here with the
permission of the author. The Historical Documents section in
GenealogyBank includes over 243,000 reports from the US Serial
Set and the American State Papers). Click here to search the
American State Papers and US Congressional Serial Set in
GenealogyBank.com Genealogists use whatever sources are
available to them in pursuit of their family history: diaries,
family Bibles, census records, passenger arrival records, and
other federal records. One set of materials that is often
overlooked, however, is the Congressional Serial Set. This large
multivolume resource contains various congressional reports and
documents from the beginning of the federal government, and its
coverage is wide and varied. Women, African Americans, Native
Americans, students, soldiers and sailors, pensioners,
landowners, and inventors are all represe