Accessing Heritage Quest through the LACo Library

 Researchers can use the Los Angeles County Library website for genealogical research from home and for free (our tax dollars hard at work) !  You must have a library card and the number that's on it: the 13-digit number that begins with the four one's.  Even if you are already signed into your library account, you will still need to use your number again at the separate databases.

First, go to the main library website.  It looks something like this:

2.  Find the "Research" link in the top bar and click on it.

3.  That click brings you to the Databases & Online Resources page.  There are lots of great resources here.  Some are more likely to be of use for genealogy than others.  Several of the newspapers there are useful for research in the last 30+ years.  Explore those later on your own.  But the red arrow here points out the biggie for genealogy, cleverly titled "Genealogy." 

4.  Clicking on Genealogy bring you to this page.  Now, click on the link for Heritage Quest, shown here with a red arrow:

7.  This is the portal to Heritage Quest.  Type your 13-digit library account number into the 'Barcode' box and then click on 'Connect." (Your library password is not used at all.)

8.  Clicking on <Connect> brings up the Heritage Quest main index.  You may find the Census section and the Books section of most use when you start your research. Census research will be our main topic in Week Two of the workshop, so getting in and playing around before next week might be helpful.