Women's History Month 2021: Museum Exhibits for Your Genealogy

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Why do most people visit a museum? That’s easy! For the exhibits. Most museum visitors likely decide to spend some time at a local museum as a tourist or they are specifically going to view a new exhibit.

Museum exhibits where your ancestor lived hold the promise of providing insight into the people of that community.  By visiting that museum you will learn about local history, your ancestor’s FAN Club, or what life was like during the time they lived.

Kitchen at the Cornelia White House museum in Palm Springs. (2018) Gena Philibert-Ortega

Museum exhibits also provide social history. Exhibits provide the context you need to write narratives about your female ancestor. 

Museum exhibits might answer questions like:

• What technology did she have in her kitchen?

• What did women do during World War I?

• What did women wear in the 1890s?

• What hobbies did women partake in in the 1880s?

• What did it mean to work in a mill?

• How did women cook on the Oregon Trail?

You get the idea. Museum exhibits bring a different time period to life. They help you better understand an era and place. That understanding can help you tell the story of your ancestor’s life.

So hopefully, you’re convinced that museum exhibits have a place in your genealogical research. Now comes the hard part. How do you find the exhibits you need for your research? Visiting museums where your ancestor lived seems obvious. But what about when you’re not where they lived, or you just need to view some social history?

Last week we went over the types of museums that exist. You might want to explore your local area and bookmark the various museums that you could easily visit. Signing up for email newsletters, lectures, etc., can help keep you up to date on the upcoming exhibits for that museum. Obviously, making a financial donation and joining a "friends of.." group will also help you know everything that's going on at a particular museum

Whenever I am traveling, I make time to check out local museums. I find that I sometimes stumble upon exhibits that can be helpful in my ongoing history education which in turn influences my genealogical research. Research is a process, and you never know when information you learned at a museum can come in handy.

Tomorrow we will continue our discussion of exhibits by exploring some online exhibits that can help you better understand your ancestor’s life. Online exhibits are great because they bring the museum to you, and best of all, they are free! See you tomorrow!