[How exciting to even be in the same room as Lynda Barry! I've got celebrity awe...]Writing the UnthinkableLynda Barry, multi-talented artistRecent book "What It Is" won WLA award Born in Wisconsin, again living in Wisconsinnervous sweat will Roschach you into a past life first breakup figured might as well get my wisdom teeth out - it already hurts singing to tune of Coalminers daughter - daughter of meat cutter and janitor from PhillipinesGerman Shepherd look "she doesn't look Filipino" - quarter Norwegian, and that'll suck the color right out of you All she ever wanted to do was move back to the Midwest Lives in "Greater Footville"Yahtzee - 2009 - award from Wisconsin libraries and now speaking to them - coma inducing excitement Librariesemily dickinson poems can be sung to many tunes - gershwin - loneliness as a good thing - library can sustain that kind of loneliness, good kind, of...

A presentation by Rick Pifer, Director of Reference and Public Services, Library/Archives Division, Wisconsin Historical Society.Richard Pifer said about genealogy info at WHS, "Start with the premise that yep, we have it."Range of resources available at the WHS -- a paper trail of cradle to grave records created about people:Births: registrations, baptismal records, announcement in newspapersChildhood records: school records, attendance records from rural schoolhouses, school censusMarriage records: newspaper announcementsProperty records - deeds (most are in the county Register of Deeds office)Tax records - assessment rolls & tax rolls for 19th & 20th centuryCensusDivorce records - through the Circuit Court case files (date range varies on the county which provides the records)Prison recordsNaturalization records - 19th century to 1980'sDeath registration, church burial records, newspaper obituary, probate records, wills, probate case filesWHS has genealogy info on:WisconsinU.S.CanadaLocal history records:local historiesnewspapers - huge collection, perhaps 2nd only to the Library of Congress; largest Native American...