Books

The Maryland Room holds a growing collection of over 11,000 volumes on Frederick County and Maryland, with strengths in history and genealogy of Western Maryland, Maryland’s natural history, and Maryland community cookbooks.

Family Histories

We are actively seeking family histories relevant to the Frederick area. To identify histories of interest, search FCPL's online catalog, and the O'Donoghue Index, which includes surnames not found in the catalog.

The best starting point for researchers beginning their Frederick family history search is John Slanwood Martin's Genealogical Index to Frederick County, Maryland, a four-volume guide to over 100 secondary sources. The Maryland Room holds approximately 30 of Martin's sources in its collection.

Civil War Collections

The Maryland Room houses the George Brigham Civil War Collection of over 1,000 books, including twelve major reference sets and works on twenty-nine states. The collection includes high quality reprints and recently compiled indexes of not only the War of the Rebellion, but also the rarer 100-volume supplement. Other Civil War topics covered by books in the collection include prisons, weapons, collectibles, officers, and Confederate burial locations.

Complementary to the Brigham Collection is the smaller Edward F. Fry Civil War Collection which includes a 1977 reprint of The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, with Documents, Narratives, Illustrative Incidents, Poetry, Etc., originally published in the 1860s, and The Collector's Library of the Civil War. Each volume in this Time-Life series includes first-hand accounts of the war.

Archeological Materials

In 2008 the Maryland Room received the Spencer Geasey Collection, donated by the Monocacy Archeological Society, the local chapter of the Maryland Archaeological Society. The Geasey Collection consists of several hundred books, periodicals, and gray literature relating to archeology and related topics. The early native peoples and the country's geology do not neatly respect state boundaries, therefore the materials in the Geasey Collection cover more than just the state of Maryland, making it somewhat unique among the Maryland Room Collections. The Geasey Collection does not yet appear in the FCPL catalog; call the Maryland Room for further information about this collection.