Heritage Room

We're building an index of all obituaries published in local papers. Visit obits.hmcpl.org to search our index and purchase print copies of obituaries for a nominal fee. An extra bonus: we're cross-referencing obituaries with interment sites, so if you find an interment site of interest, you can view a list of other people buried there, and perhaps find additional people you didn't know you needed to look for!

Our print and microform collections include (but are not limited to):

• Family history materials. Books, family files and periodicals
• Huntsville and Madison County History. Available in books, microfilm, local newspaper clippings, descriptive brochures, and biographical data.
• State and county records. Including histories, abstracts of marriages, cemetery records, wills, deeds, court minutes, and church and vital records. Print and microform.
• Newspapers. Local editions on microform, and other editions from colonial period to current.
• Periodicals. Over 500 journals and newsletters, with indexing for most. The collection includes complete runs of numerous genealogical journals.
• Genealogy collections. In microform, including the McCubbins (North Carolina) and Turner (Delaware) Collections; the WPA Index of South Carolina Cemeteries; Massachusetts town vital records to 1850; the South Carolina COM Index; and the papers of Leonardo Andrea (South Carolina).
• ScanPro 800. Thanks to a grant from the Alabama Public Library Service through the Library Services and Technology Act, we have a ScanPro 800, which is a microform machine that processes microfilm and microfiche copies built for public use applications.
• Historical collections. Including:
  • The Draper Papers
  • The Printed Archives of Pennsylvania
  • South Carolina Low-Country Church Records
  • American State Papers
  • Mississippi Territory Records
  • The Legislative Acts of Alabama
• Military records. Available for colonial, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War and Indian Wars.
• Passenger lists. Available for arrivals to the United States from numerous countries.
• Federal records. Including:
  • The American State Papers
  • The New American State Papers: Indian Affairs
  • The Territorial Papers of the United States
  • Journals of the Continental Congress (and Indexes)
  • Guide to the Federal Records of the Archives of the United States