Genealogical Sources in Government Information: Home
World War II Enlistees
Search Engines
Other Government Websites
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GovinfoThe government's next generation collection of official publications. It is still in Beta and will replace FDsys.
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Data.gov [U.S. Government]A resource for open-access datasets generated by the Executive branch of the U.S. government.
A Few Government Publications Western Owns
Germans and Irish in America 1880
Depository Collections
Western is a depository library for U.S. government publications. The federal government sends WWU thousands of publications, which the university promises to make available to the public. Western has been a depository since the 1960s and has hundreds of thousands of federal publications.
Western is also a depository for Washington state. It was a depository for Canadian federal documents until that system was eliminated. Besides paper, fiche, CD-ROMs and posters, Western sometimes receives exclusive access to federal websites. For example, the Homeland Security Digital Library is only available through depository libraries.
Most government documents circulate. They can be checked out by anyone with valid identification, not just Western students.
Census Statistics
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Explore Census DataThe U.S. Census Bureau's main webpage for information from the 2000 Census and related data.
Census Data about Individuals
The forms filled out by individuals are released 72 years after the Census is taken. Western has most of this data for Washington and Oregon.
Congressional Serial Set
The Congressional Serial Set (also known as the Sheepskin Set) consists of hundreds of thousands of reports to and from Congress. Categories of possible interest to genealogists are reports on private bills (e.g. "Mesita Juana Lopez, private land claim in New Mexico,") petitions to the government ("James Bradford and others, hunters of Oregon, petition of, to settle on Columbia River"), and lists of government employees ("Names of all persons employed in branches of War Department, except officers of the Army, 1849").
Western Libraries now has full-text access to all volumes of the Serial Set (and its predecessor, the American State Papers) through 1969, in ProQuest Congressional Publications.
Western Libraries has an index to the Serial Set, covering 1789-1969, and owns several thousands of the paper Serial Set volumes.
All volumes from 1995 forward are online through the Government Printing Office.
Librarian Subject Team
Other Western Library Locations
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Map CollectionWestern owns more than 100,000 maps, many of them published by the U.S. government. The Map Collection is on the second floor of Wilson Library.
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Special CollectionsLocated on the 6th floor of Wilson Library. WWU Libraries Special Collections collects, organizes, describes, preserves, and maintains unique intellectual and cultural heritage materials and promotes the use of these resources by the University community, scholars, and the public. Our goal is to advance scholarship and further the educational, research, and service missions of the university.
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University Archives & Records Center (UARC)Located at the Goltz-Murray Archives Building in south campus. The University Archives and Records Center has been in operation since 1973 and has been a program of the library since 1977. The University Archives is the sole, official repository for the records of WWU and presently has more than 3000 linear feet of archival material documenting the history of Western from 1895 to the present.