We have many resources for genealogists.
Ancestry.com - use this in the Library.
Newspapers.com - Search various Newport newspapers for articles and obituaries from 1784 - 1977. More than 500 other New England newspapers are also available, including historical Fall River papers. Use this in the library or at home.
All of our local public computers have full access to:
- Portsmouth High School Yearbooks (1966 - 2018)
- The Sakonnet Times (1967 - 2020)
- The Portsmouth Times (2013 - 2020)
- Various military, church, town and state histories, along with the history of Brown University
- RI Vital Records
- Local newspaper clippings about the Hurricane of 1938, 375th Anniversary of the town, Boyd's Windmill, and other topics.
- Digitized volumes of the Genealogies of the Clarke, Hutchinson, Marbury, Porter and Wildbore families.
- An oral history (both recordings and typed transcripts) of an interview with Herb Hall about life in Portsmouth during the 1960's.
Books in the library can be found in the library catalog. Our collections include more than 600 volumes on loan from the RI Genealogical Society and our local history collection.
The library has the Land Grants of Portsmouth and other local maps. We also have the items from the Pierce Collection.