Column: Preserving the Past, by Pat Mulso

You have probably seen the commercials on television enticing you to visit Ancestry.com to search for your family history. The Freeborn County Historical Museum library has a subscription to Ancestry.com along with access to other sites used to research family histories. If you are a member at the museum you can use our research library as often as you like throughout the year to look for information on your family history. If you are not an experienced researcher, we can help you with that also. We will be offering a library lock-in from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on March 18. The cost is $25 for members and $30 for nonmembers. We will help you one-on-one to organize the information that you have and to actually work on your research. You do not have to be from Freeborn County to benefit from the use of our library and resources. This class is very limited, so don’t wait to get registered. Call or stop by the museum to register.

If research is just not your thing, but you are interested in preserving your family history for yourself, your children, grandchildren, etc., consider hiring us to do the research for you.We can do the research and put a book together for you. We are able to include information you may already know, along with photos and documents and then continue the research for you and put the information into a book form.

The museum will be hosting another four-hour defensive driving class from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Feb. 11. The cost is $19, and you must pre-register for the class. Another class will be offered from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on March 9. You do not have to be a member of the museum or AARP to take the class. After the initial eight-hour class you are required to take a four-hour refresher class every three years.

Work is continuing on the museum addition, as you can see from the street, the bricks are going up and the window frames are going in. On the inside the sprinklers are being installed and the electricians are busy with wiring and the walls are being insulated and sheet rock is being installed. The heat is in, and the plumbers are busy also. It is an exciting time, but we need your help now. We need to continue to raise money so that we can complete the addition and make the transition to the new building. We will be able to renovate one area at a time in the original building, but it will be the most cost efficient to complete the addition now. Please consider making your donation now and help us to continue preserving the history of Freeborn County now and for future generations. Donations are tax deductible.

We will begin our membership calling campaign in February. Board members will be calling past members to encourage them to renew their memberships. We depend on membership contributions for a large part of our budget. We met our membership goal last year; help us to achieve our goal this year also. If you have not been a member before, there’s no better time than now to start enjoying the benefits of a museum membership!

We recently received several grants, a grant from the Cuppage Foundation for our building expansion project, from Freeborn Mower Co-op Operation Round-Up for special Archival Boxes for our clothing collection and from the Library Legacy Grant program for our “Picture Freeborn County” project to scan and make available photos for our patrons as well as for use in the classroom at Southwest Middle School. This grant project is funded in whole or in part by the vote of the people on Nov. 4, 2008.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m Tuesdays through Fridays. We will open for group tours by appointment. We have several class reunions that will be meeting for tours this year at the museum.

Pat Mulso is the executive director of the Freeborn County Historical Museum in Albert Lea.