Since its inception, the United States federal government has gathered information, held hearings, conducted investigations, and compiled reports on nearly every topic imaginable. Millions of documents have been published by the United States Government Printing Office-the GPO-as the official publication arm of the federal government. A surprising amount of data found in these hearings, investigations, and reports is historical in nature, and is filled with countless names and personally identifying pieces of data.

With so much information available, how do you know when looking at federal government document collections might contribute to your family history research? Here's a checklist:

If your potential ancestor

• was involved in military activities
  
• had claims for lost real and personal estate based on military actions
  
• was involved in any dealings or transactions with the government
  
• settled in a frontier area
  
• suffered from any disaster
  
• attended a government institution or participated in a government organization
  
• was a Native American or was involved with Native Americans
  
• was a member of a wave of immigrants
  
• was a member of a minority or oppressed ethnic group
  
• was involved in transportation or commerce
  
• served as a government official

then federal government documents are for you!

An Impressive Resource
In terms of use, federal government documents can be classified into three general groups: records of government administration; research documents (typically useful for business specialists and scientists); and popular sources of information. The records of government administration and the popular sources of information are the two areas where family historians will likely find the best data. These documents may take the form of books, pamphlets, magazines, microforms, or CD-ROMs.

And just what can we find in federal government documents? Even the short list is impressive: journals of the Continental Congress; lists of names of inventors to whom patents were issued from 1790 to 1804, together with a description of the items and complete addresses of the patentees; thousands of "reports on petitions" to Congress such as the one filed by Elizabeth Newman in 1837 seeking release from payments of interest to the government on money owed by her late husband; thousands of "reports on claims" sent to Congress such as the claim of Jacob L. Shinn in 1880 for stores, supplies, and cotton seized by the U.S. government; publications similar to Civil War Manuscripts-A Guide to Collections in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress; numerous histories of Native American tribes, their officials, and their laws; decisions of the Department of the Interior in appealed pension and bounty-land claims; a list of inhabitants of the parish of St. Mary, Louisiana praying repeal of the Tariff of 1846; laws of North Carolina relating to free Negroes in the 1700s with lists of members of the Society of Friends challenging those regulations; and four volumes of records of the Virginia Company of London, 1619-1626.

With such detailed information in abundance, why don't family historians flock to federal government document collections in droves? I believe there are two reasons: (1) libraries tend to put federal document collections in out-of-the-way places because they are so large and challenging to use; (2) federal document collections are so large and challenging to use! However, there are several things that can be done to demystify the use of federal government documents.

A Few Tips
The first key to using and understanding federal documents is locating the repositories that house them. This should be relatively easy, since today's government documents depository system disseminates the largest volume of informational literature in the world. Public libraries and academic libraries are two excellent institutions to check when searching for these collections.

Most large public libraries have federal document collections. While some libraries may not have complete collections, most will typically house over fifty percent of the significant federal materials. Many medium-sized and small public libraries also have government document collections worthy of note. For those libraries, the federal government is an economical publisher of tomes of useful and timely data. All land-grant colleges and universities have complete federal documents collections. Most all other large colleges and universities also have substantial collections of these records. Nearly every researcher is fewer than sixty miles from a sizable government document repository.

The second key to using federal government documents is understanding how the materials are cataloged. While most researchers are used to having materials cataloged for ease of access and use, federal government documents are cataloged for ease of archiving. As researchers, we are used to finding books about Adams County, Pennsylvania cataloged with other books on that same state. We are also used to finding books on the Smith family grouped or cataloged together, books on Swiss immigration cataloged together, and so forth.

With federal documents, however, what the books are about is less important for cataloging purposes than the federal agency which was responsible for their compilation. Hence, books on Adams County, Pennsylvania could be under "LC" if the Library of Congress published a bibliography on that county, under "D" if the Defense Department published a study of army bases in the state, and under "W" if the old War Department published any works regarding its dealings with the American Indians when it was responsible for those undertakings.

A Shift in Approach
If you're thinking that this sounds like a separate cataloging or classification scheme, you're right. It's called the Superintendent of Documents Classification System, with the call numbers of the materials being called SUDOC numbers. While it might be frustrating to know that there is something in use in the libraries you visit besides the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress Classification Schedules-yet another cataloging system!-all you really need to do is make a slight shift in your approach. Instead of thinking solely about the subjects being researched, if you want to browse a federal documents collection, you also need to think about the federal agencies likely to have been responsible for various activities. Knowing a little general American history-as well as some history of specific federal government agencies-can be very handy.

Browsing Alternatives
And while browsing is quite appealing to most genealogists working in library collections, there are a couple of excellent options if browsing does not work for you. First, most federal documents collections have specialists trained in knowing how the collections are organized and in knowing which government agencies typically produce particular types of materials. These librarian-specialists are also aware of the almost countless numbers of indexes and other access tools the researcher can use to identify and locate specific information. And one of the nicest things about these specialists is that they tend to be the "Maytag repair people" of the library world. They are so anxious to have any kind of business that they fall all over themselves to serve anyone interested in government documents.

Indexes Galore
Second, as mentioned above, there are a number of extremely useful indexes to major portions of federal government document collections. The longest-running continuously published index is called the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications. It is an author, subject, and title index to published federal documents. As the oldest and most comprehensive index, it provides access to more than a century's worth of publications. Looking at each year's Monthly Catalog or the cumulative indexes can still take some time, however, particularly since the work has its own unique arrangement of categories. But knowing the federal government agency responsible for the information or publications can often provide some shortcuts.

An even greater shortcut for researchers is the online version of the Monthly Catalog, which is available in most libraries. The flexibility of the electronic product and the keyword searching greatly enhance access. While the electronic version only indexes federal documents published after 30 June 1976, it is critical to note that the date of publication does not necessarily have much to do with the time period actually covered by a specific document or set of records.

For example, in searching the GPO Monthly Catalog provided by OCLC's online services, you'll find seventy-four references to the American Revolutionary War. One of the references, Naval Documents of the American Revolution, is actually a ten-volume ongoing series published by the Naval History Division of the Defense Department. Ten volumes on just the naval aspects of the Revolutionary War is an incredible amount of data and detail! To illustrate, volume nine covers naval activities of the Revolution for a four-month time period, June through September of 1777, and includes correspondence, orders, numerous lists, the placement of various vessels, and muster rolls for specific ships.

There are a number of other print indexes, some heavily annotated, that family historians should use. The Comprehensive Index to the Publications of the United States Government, 1881-1893 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1905), frequently called the "Ames Index" after its compiler, John G. Ames, is particularly useful. It pre-dates the Monthly Catalog, and it has very descriptive annotations which name the principal parties involved in cases brought before Congress, a description of the action taken, and a House of Representatives or Senate document number for further research. For many researchers, the annotation alone provides them with enough data and clues to investigate other records or re-direct research to different geographic areas.

The Checklist of United States Public Documents, 1789-1909 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1911) is a publication of more than 1700 pages which lists thousands of government documents by federal agency. While not in a comfortable bibliographic format, this checklist nonetheless provides the researcher with knowledge of many early documents produced by the federal government. Many rosters, lists, gazetteers, and other geographic finding aids can be identified with the help of this source.

This publication is also a good tool for reviewing the various types of issues and responsibilities any given governmental agency may have handled over time. Under the War Department, one can find a listing for the "Register of Cadets Admitted into the Military Academy, West Point, NY, from Its Origins to June 30, 1870," "Charts of the Great Lakes," "Monthly Station List of Officers" from 1869-1909, and Rolls of Honor for many U.S. military engagements-the most popular ones being from the Civil War era. For the Interior Department, one can find such things as "Laws, Decisions, and Regulations Affecting the Work of the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, 1893-1906, with Maps Showing Classification of Lands in the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole Nations" and "Names and Addresses of Pensioners of the United States Living in Canada, January 31, 1899" with service data and rate of pension.

A special collection of federal government documents of particular note for genealogists is the United States Serial Set. These materials are an ongoing collection of publications compiled under the direction of Congress. The amount of data in this set is phenomenal, and the access to that data is exceptional. The Serial Set contains congressional journals, reports, directories, and manuals. The "American State Papers" portion of the set, which covers the documents of the first fourteen Congresses, has ten subject classes, including Indian affairs, public lands, claims, and military affairs. There are many types of indexes to this set, making access easy and reliable.

With room to highlight only a select few of the major federal government document indexes in this article, it is important to note that many more indexes do exist. The best way to identify them and become familiar with their use is to visit your local public library's document collection or the document collection of your nearest large college or university. Most have staff that are extremely knowledgeable and willing to help.

Uncle Sam Online
It is equally important to note that increasing amounts of information produced by federal government agencies is being made accessible on the Internet. While the majority of data on the World Wide Web is contemporary in nature, the genealogical community can expect to see increasing amounts of historical data being presented in an electronic format as well. A good site to visit for exploring electronic access to federal government documents is the University of Michigan Documents Center at http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/.