Delaware Public Archives Blog

With the 200th anniversary of the start of the War of 1812 being observed in 2012, the Delaware Public Archives will be hosting a program entitled “The Star Spangled Banner Project” on Saturday, June 2, 10:30 a.m. This program will be presented by Suzanne Thomassen-Krauss, Senior Textile Conservator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American […]

Actually there have been five lighthouses at Port Mahon to guide ships and waterman on the Delaware Bay.  The first was built in 1831 and because of erosion, a series of replacements were built.  The last lighthouse was built in 1903 and lasted until 1984.  Recently processed, the Delaware Technical and Community College Photograph Collection […]

With all the excitement about the Kentucky Derby, we had some people stop by to see if we had anything relating to thoroughbred racing in Delaware.  They loved looking at all the old photographs from Delaware Park.  They reviewed state reports, administrative files from the Department of Agriculture on the Thoroughbred Racing Commission and scrapbooks […]

If you were born, married, or attended public school in Delaware, eventually the Delaware Public Archives will have a record of you. As part of the Dover Days celebration, the staff of the Delaware Public Archives will conduct a tour of the facility on Saturday, May 5, at 1:30 p.m.   This annual “behind the scenes” […]

If you have been reading the newspapers lately or watching the news, you know that Delaware has a scheduled execution for April 20th.  We had some curious citizens stop in to see if we had any information or documents about past executions. They started by looking at our newspaper collection. Next they looked in our […]

Looking for help in finding a parent, grandparent, or other relative in the soon to be released 1940 United States Census? The Delaware Public Archives can help!On Saturday, April 7, 10:30 a.m. the Delaware Public Archives will present a program about the 1940 Census featuring Jefferson M. Moak, Senior Archivist with the National Archives & […]

Growing up in Pennsylvania, the only indication that a new driver was behind the wheel was a nervous parent sitting in the front passenger seat or some less-than-confident moves on the road. When I moved to Delaware and began seeing “Novice Driver” stickers affixed to cars, I couldn’t help but like them. What a great […]

  So I was watching TV last night and an Ancestry.com commercial came on.  It was a woman talking about how she was looking for information on her grandmother and lo and behold she found her marriage record.  To my surprise the next image they showed was a Delaware marriage certificate that Ancestry had digitized […]

On Saturday, March 3, 10:30 a.m., Richard E. Gillespie, Executive Director of TIGHAR (The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery), based in Wilmington, Delaware, will be presenting a program at the Delaware Public Archives entitled “What Really Happened to Amelia Earhart?”  2012 marks the 75th anniversary of her disappearance. In 1937, Amelia Earhart set out […]

Today Governor Markell was here at the archives to commemorate Black History Month by reading the official proclamation.  This year was particularly special as Orlando Camp was here to talk about his new book The Milford Eleven.  The Archives unveiled its newest display about African-American education in Delaware.  Included in the exhibit are facsimiles of […]