How to Build a Family Tree: Tracing Your Ancestors
Begin at home by gathering and organizing your papers, make a simple chart or list, beginning with you, your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.
NGS Book Loan Collection
If you cannot get to a genealogy collection or your library doesn’t have the book you want, ask if interlibrary loan (ILL) is available. The <anchor>NGS Book Loan Collection</anchor>, held by St. Louis (Missouri) County Library, offers interlibrary loan service to send books in the NGS collection to your local library, for your use. There are more than six thousand genealogies among the twenty thousand books in the collection, many of them circulating. This collection is open to everyone. If the book does not circulate, contact the library staff, they may be willing to copy specific information for your research needs.
NGS Book Loan Collection - National Genealogical Society
NGS Book Loan Collection - National Genealogical Society

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# Learning Center

[Home](https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/) [Welcome to NGS’s Free Genealogy Resources](https://www.ngsgenealogy.org/free-resources/)NGS Book Loan Collection

# NGS Book Loan Collection

**Please note: All services at the St. Louis Library, including Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and circulation of the NGS Collection, are suspended effective 20 May 2024. The new Emerson History & Genealogy Center will open 9 July 2024, when services will resume.**

The National Genealogical Society (NGS) library holdings are housed in Special Collections at [St.](http://webpac.slcl.org/)[Lo](http://webpac.slcl.org/)[uis](http://webpac.slcl.org/)[County Library](http://webpac.slcl.org/) in St. Louis, Missouri. The entire collection is available to the general public in person, and non-reference volumes may be borrowed with Interlibrary Loan (ILL) through a local library.

## Collection highlights include:

- over 20,000 genealogy-related books, most available with interlibrary loan (ILL) lending
- more than 6,000 family histories
- state, county, and local histories
- abstracts of records of cemeteries, churches, courts, deeds, marriages, wills and other probate records
- strong holdings for states along the East Coast and New England

## How to Find an Item of Interest

Search the [St. Louis County Library catalog](http://webpac.slcl.org/) for a subject, title, author, or keyword. There may be two records for the same title:

- Call numbers beginning with “R” (for example, R929.3) are reference items and **_do not circulate_** outside the library.
- Call numbers without an “R” (for example, 929.3 or Q929.3) **_do circulate_** and can be borrowed through Interlibrary Loan.

Print the catalog record of the book you want. Take the printout to the Interlibrary Loan department of your local library to order the book.

Remember, an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) is a transaction between libraries, so you must contact your home library to initiate any ILL request. The web page [Interlibrary Loan Procedures for the National Genealogical Society Book Loan Collection](http://www.slcl.org/genealogy-and-local-history/services#ill) provides helpful information for both librarians and patrons.

## Donating Books to the Collection

NGS member authors who donate a copy of their book to the NGS Collection at St. Louis County Library may request a free listing of the book’s description in the _[NGS Magazine](/magazine/)_. Subject to _NGS Magazine_ editor approval. For instructions, please contact

NGS Book Loan Collection

St. Louis County Library

1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd.

St. Louis, MO 63131

Email: [\[email protected\]](/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#c9aeaca7aca8a5a6aeb089baa5aaa5e7a6bbae)

Phone: (314) 994-3300 ext. 208

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