The Maryland Room: Local History Archive Keeps Frederick's History Alive

My name is Chris Ragen, I’m a senior at UMBC and I spent the summer working at The Maryland Room at the C. Burr Artz Library in Frederick, MD. The Maryland Room is a local history archive and genealogical research center designed to maintain Frederick’s colorful past and to allow people from all over the country to trace their roots back to the colonial period. The Maryland Room is headed by Mary Mannix, who specializes in genealogical research and possesses a Masters in Library Sciences from The University of Delaware.

Throughout my tenure there I was honored to work on an array of projects including cataloging collections that have gone unprocessed since the 1930s, organizing and reviewing a large oral history collection donated by Dr. Bruce Thompson at Frederick Community College and performing research for remote clients. Every day brought new challenges including handling documents from as far back as the 1860s, searching through microfilm, accessing Sanborn maps and processing obituaries. Throughout the experience I was able to learn proper document handling procedures, library shelving, genealogical research techniques and I was able to sharpen my own research skills.

The joy of working in the Maryland Room was that every day was different, bringing different clients with different focuses and new questions that necessitated different approaches. There was a curious mix of digital and physical research required that included searching Maryland land records online while cross referencing the information with old city directories to find the previous owners of a client’s property for example. All told the Maryland Room was an ideal place for a history student to intern, a quiet place for research with a little bit of socializing and a distinct lack of monotony.