PERSI—the Periodical Source Index—is “the
premier subject index for genealogy and local history periodicals.” This
valuable resource provides over 3.2 million citations to tens of thousands of
periodicals across North America, the British Isles, and Europe. Produced by
staff at Allen County Public Library (ACPL) Genealogy Center, it resides in
Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Curt Witcher, Director of Special Collections at ACPL recently
shared exciting news about PERSI at the NGS 2026 Family History Conference. Fully
22% of the articles in PERSI are now linked to digitized articles. Researchers no
longer have to travel to Fort Wayne to find and copy journal articles or pay
ACPL for copies to be made and mailed to them.
To use this amazing repository, go to PERSI.
Choose one of the search options including Article Title Keyword.
Articles that have been digitized will show an icon that you
can click and download the article.
Once you click on that icon, you will be directed to the
digitized article.
Articles are either digitized by ACPL and available via PDF
or you will be re-directed to a website that has the article digitized, such as
in this example where the article has been digitized by the Kansas Historical
Society.
You can learn more about how to use PERSI for your
genealogical research by watching the NGS video, Member Connects: Up Close and Personal with PERSI featuring Jeanette Sheliga, Dawn Slater, AG, CG and Cari Taplin,
CG.
Not all articles have been digitized but that is the perfect
excuse to check off one more destination on your family history bucket list: a
visit to the Genealogy Center.
In the meantime, thanks to the dedicated staff at the
Genealogy Center, we can mine even more resources from the comfort of our homes
with the promise of additional digitize articles over time.
