More Resources at HeritageQuest

From Library of Congress collection, accessed via HeritageQuest

Photos in the public domain! HeritageQuest, which many U.S. residents can access from home, absolutely free, with a local library card, has so many wonderful databases for genealogy. It's my go-to for city directories and other databases.

I also like its photo and map databases. They are conveniently searched right from the easy-to-use search box, and it's easy to change parameters to expand or restrict my searches.

Locating Photos for a Wood Family History Booklet

In preparation for a family history booklet about my husband's Cleveland parents and grandparents, I wanted to photos of the time and place, for illustration. Public domain photos would be perfect, the price is right--free!

To find a Library of Congress photo using HeritageQuest, I entered a date (1925) and place (Cleveland, Cuyahoga county, Ohio), plus the name of a well-known building, Terminal Tower, and clicked the search button.

The top results (shown here) are exterior and interior photos of Terminal Tower, taken "about 1933" (close enough to 1925 for my purposes). Good quality photos, with extra information on each page, including a written description of what's in the photo.

If you're looking for photos of a particular city, occupation, etc., or maybe a map of where an ancestor once lived, see whether your library offers access to HeritageQuest from home.