Finding Local Libraries
Make certain you know the present day county where your family lived.
Go to Google and type
map with the name of your county and state - examples:
map "New London County" Connecticut
map "Jefferson County" New York
Keep this map (either a paper copy or a link) to refer to so that you can see what towns are close by
More and more public libraries are building local history /genealogy collections online. Here are some examples:
Muncie / Delaware County Ohio Digital Resource Library
Delaware County Memory (Ohio)
Southeastern Ohio Digital Shoebox (joint project by several public libraries)
There are many library directories online but most are like Public Libraries.com which is an outstanding directory to public libraries but you miss other kinds of libraries when using it exclusively. The same is true of many Genealogical Library directories which are usually incomplete. For most comprehensive results do the following pair of searchs:
1. GOOGLE - put in genealogy library - your county and state - example:
"Hamilton County" Indiana genealogy library
"Whitman County" Washington genealogy library
or the town Wenatchee Washington genealogy library
2. SWITCHBOARD
Another one of the best ways to find a good list of libraries in an area is the Switchboard Business Search - in the field that says Category put in libraries then put in the town and state closest to where your family lived. This also is a great search if you put in funeral homes)
You will get a list of libraries in the area - if you click on the library it will give the mail address, phone number and a link to their website if they have one. If there is no link (or the link is dead) you can also try Googling the library in hopes of more details or a site that Switchboard has not added a link for.
LOCAL HISTORY SEARCH is also an option - at Google search by
"local history" Flora Illinois
which sometimes pulls up interesting resources not seen through the genealogy research search.