It’s a beautiful time of year for a road trip! Those driving to the National Genealogical Society (NGS) 2025 Family History Conference, from areas west of Louisville in the Kansas City or Columbia areas of Missouri, it’s a straight shot to Louisville via I-70 and I-64, which pass through St. Louis, providing a nice halfway point to stop and do some research.
Regional Research Opportunities
Before you hit St. Louis, in Columbia, Missouri, you might want to stop at the Columbia Research Center of the State Historical Society of Missouri. The Research Center is home to records from central and northern Missouri. Regional research centers are also located in Cape Girardeau, Kansas City, Rolla, Springfield, and St. Louis.
St. Louis Research Opportunities
The trip from Kansas City to St. Louis is around 4 hours, and there, research opportunities abound.
- The St. Louis Research Center of the State Historical Society of Missouri is located on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus, and like the other regional research centers of the state historical society, it’s holdings cover the state of Missouri and the Midwest in general, with an emphasis on records of St. Louis and surrounding areas. Notable collections document labor groups, the African American experience in the area, and the LGBTQ community.
- Not to be confused with the State Historical Society, the Missouri Historical Society was founded in St. Louis, and its Missouri History Museum Library & Research Center houses collections related to the state and city, as well as the Mississippi and Missouri Valleys, the Louisiana Purchase, and the nineteenth century American West.
- The St. Louis County Library is home to the Emerson History and Genealogical Center, located on the second floor of the Clark Family Branch of the library. There you can access the National Genealogical Society’s Book Loan Collection, which includes more than 27,000 books for research in person or by interlibrary loan. Additional special collections include the collections of the St. Louis Genealogical Society and other organizations, German and Norwegian resources, religious denominational records, local histories, and expansive digital collection.
- Also located at the St. Louis County Library is the Memory Lab, a “do-it-yourself digitization space” available by appointment for recording personal memories in a recording studio and digitizing family ephemera, like slides, negatives, photographs, and other documents. You can also transfer various tape mediums (VHS, cassettes, DVDs, etc.) into digital formats.
- The St. Louis Public Library’s Genealogy Department and St. Louis Room are on the third floor of the Central Library and include archival and special collections unique to the area such as scrapbooks, portraits, clippings, obituaries, and many other items of interest. The library also offers access to a large number of online genealogical and historical databases.
- National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) branch of the National Archives and Records Administration is the primary repository for military service records from WWI to the present. It is strongly recommended that you make an appointment ahead of your arrival to ensure access to the records you need.
Back on the Road
From St. Louis it’s an easy stretch of American countryside on the road to your destination in Louisville. Enjoy the spring scenery, crank up your favorite tunes, or load up your favorite podcast. If you’re looking for something on genealogy, ConferenceKeeper has you covered with a comprehensive list of genealogical podcasts that will make for great conversation starters as you meet and reconnect with genealogists from across the country and around the world at the NGS Conference.
Once you arrive in Louisville, enjoy meeting and networking with genealogists from throughout the US who share your love for family history. Join us at the historic Galt House from 23-26 May for an amazing program and get access to audio recordings and slides from every session through 15 July 2025!
Don't Miss the Conference and Related Events
Go to the Registration and Pricing page for details, fees, and to sign up for the conference, luncheons, and special events. There are conference registration offers for Youth and NGS Organization Members.
If you’ve already signed up, download a social media badge to share that you're going and invite people to join you for a road trip to remember.
If you’re coming from the north or south, we also have you covered with articles on the road trip from Chicago, and from Birmingham.
See you in Louisville!
