500 Free Library of Congress Digital Collections

The Ancestor Hunt regularly adds and updates new collection links, as well as searches for and fixes broken links.
(This page's most recent update is September 2024)
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The Library of Congress’s Digital Collections are large and growing. Currently, there are 525 different collections. You should definitely incorporate this massive set of collections into your genealogy research. They are divided into 15 different topics, Click on a link for more information about a topic.

African American History [23]
American History [218]
Art & Architecture [57]

Geography & Places [33]
Government, Law & Politics [172]
Literature & Poetry [19]
Local History & Folklife [67]
Performing Arts [109]
Religion & Philosophy [21] Science & Technology [27]
Social & Business History [45]
Sports & Recreation [12]
War & Military [89] Women’s History [17] World Cultures & History [150]

You can see all the specific collections by selecting a topic. You can also drill down by Original Format, Online Format, Date, and Location. There are several other drill-down criteria.

The main original formats are:

Photo, Print, Drawing Manuscript/Mixed Material
Periodical Book/Printed Material
Legislation Newspaper
Notated Music
Web Page
Personal Narrative Map
Audio Recording
Web Archive

There are currently over 6 million items in the collections.  There is plenty of material to search for and discover. The Library of Congress holds another 18 million items yet to be digitized, so there is a lot to discover online in the future.

There are three topics that are quite useful, although many of them might have pertinent information that can assist us.

On the surface, Local History & Folklife, War & Military, and Geography & Places is where I started, to see what might advance my research.

The collections with many different types of maps are quite helpful and extensive.

Take a look at the list of these digital collections. You may find some real gems that can assist you in your research.  

Go to LOC Digital Collections to examine the contents.

Download the Quicksheet PDF

The details and links are included in the Quicksheet available below. To download the Quick Sheet PDF, click on the Download button below:

For all the previously published Quick Reference Guides, click on QuickSheets

Genealogy QuickSheets – Frequently Asked Questions

Quicksheets are also known as Quick Reference Guides. They are generally a one or two page PDF that is downloadable. A few QuickSheets are as large as a five page PDF.
Every QuickSheet is in a specific post on The Ancestor Hunt website. Just bring up the post, and at the bottom of the page is a big brown Download button that allows you to view and/or download the PDF when clicked.
Yes! You can view or download as many as you wish.

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