A little more than a quarter century ago, a substantial inheritance helped put the Blair County Genealogical Society on the map as the largest library strictly for family history in the wide swath of Pennsylvania between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.

As many from the area already know, the society just enhanced its Roller-Hojeth Memorial Library’s footprint of 6,000 square feet of shelving with an addition of 1,200 square feet. It held a well-attended ribbon cutting on March 27.

Over the years, the society acquired what had been the old Floyd Hoenstine Rental Library and became the official custodian for county records, in addition to building a collection of thousands of books and microfilms with genealogical documents.

The addition will aid the society in two ways: First, it creates a designated space for meetings of up to 80 people with walls available for displays; and, secondly, it frees up space in the original part of the library that doubled as an ersatz meeting space. Much of that space can now be used for shelving to hold even more books.

Blair Genealogical President Jim Snyder Jr. said the addition was a “two-year project from startup to finish,” and that it was funded in part by the last of the endowment money that created the original library.

The addition also includes an up-to-date projector screen that will allow for better multimedia presentations at events. It is anticipated that the new space may be used for other groups’ events, too.

Snyder also notes that Blair Genealogical’s website (URL is www.bcgslibrary,org) has been upgraded with an online obituary index that checks in at more than 700,000 names, and that the previously uncatalogued library now has a search function to look for books by title and author.

In addition to having many resources about Blair County itself, the library has strong collections of books for all of the surrounding counties, too, as well as collections of microfilms from the Pennsylvania State Archives.

Since Blair County was erected relatively late in Pennsylvania’s history (1846), the fact that it has important collections from its “mother” counties–Huntingdon, Bedford (and, mostly remotely) Cumberland–is paramount.

Admission to the library is free to all.

Hours should be checked on the website, but currently are 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Mondays, 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesdays, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.

Membership in the society starts at $25 a year for regular memberships (with people in the same household able to join as associate members for just $20 more). All levels of membership receive quarterly newsletters, a query, online surname listing, and reduced copy prices. Higher levels of membership add other benefits.

The library is at 431 Scotch Valley Road, Hollidaysburg, PA 16648-9697; phone, 814-696-3492.

Beidler is a freelance writer and lecturer on genealogy. Email jamesmbeidler@gmail.com. Like him on Facebook (James M. Beidler).