Collection
- Books, documents & microfilm pertaining to Portsmouth and Norfolk County
- Genealogies, memoirs, scrapbooks and notebooks of Portsmouth families and organizations (please donate or share)
- Photo Collections of a number of local historians/photographers. (Please donate or share)
- Jeffrey T Wilson - 1924 “Colored Notes” index and articles from Portsmouth Star newspaper; Bertha Edward – Notes on Portsmouth Black History
- Yearbooks from various Portsmouth Schools digitized through a project with the Library of Virginia and made available via the Internet Archive.
- Books by local authors
- Special section on the Civil War including applications for membership in the Stonewall Jackson Chapter of Confederate Veterans (including meeting minutes)
Vital & Cemetery Records
Vital and Cemetery Records can be accessed in the room, on this Portsmouth Public Library site, or by visiting the Portsmouth USGENWEB Archive Page and Find A Grave Website; these are updated periodically.
Ancestry Library Edition
Ancestry will give you access to over 7 billion genealogical records from across the globe and millions of family trees (Only available inside the library). View the Ancestry Library Edition Website
- Family trees
- Helpful tools
- Historical records
- Support
Heritage Quest
HeritageQuest Online provides libraries with a unique, growing collection of research materials for tracing family history and American culture with over 25,000 books, the entire U.S. Federal Census, PERSI™, and other expanding collections. Beginning or professional genealogists can now use this powerful online library, with original page images for all documents, from the convenience of their home or at the library.
Portsmouth Public Library Offers The Virginian Pilot Historical
The Portsmouth Public Library is pleased to announce the immediate availability of its new digital newspaper collection in a trial run. The Virginian Pilot Historical is available to all library patrons and is updated daily. It provides online access to current and archived full-text newspaper issues of The Virginia Pilot from 1856 to 1989.
The Virginian Pilot Historical enables library patrons to easily search and browse current and archived news articles, editorials, reviews, birth and marriage announcements, obituaries and a variety of special sections. Patrons can use this resource for general reference or to research local and national issues, events, people, government, education, arts, business, sports, real estate and much more.
The Virginian Pilot Historical is a resource offered by NewsBank, the world’s premier provider of newspapers and other news sources online. Serving public libraries for more than 45 years, NewsBank offers online access to more than 12,000 titles from the U.S. and other countries around the globe. For more information on this collection, contact the Portsmouth Public Library by calling 757-393-8501 and ask for Local History, or click below: