In 1817, the Serial Set was begun with the intent of being the official, collective, definitive publication documenting the activities of the federal government. Their topics cover a wide range, from the Ku Klux Klan to child labor practices to immigration to western exploration. These publications include annual reports of the various executive branch agencies, congressional hearings and documents, registers of employees, and telephone directories. government has gathered information, held hearings, compiled reports, and published those findings in literally millions of pages, the majority of which have been published by the Government Printing Office (GPO). While a beginning genealogist would not use the Serial Set to begin a family history, it nevertheless can serve as a valuable tool and resource for someone helping to flesh out an ancestors life, especially where it coincided with the interests of the U.S. Women, African Americans, Native Americans, students, soldiers and sailors, pensioners, landowners, and inventors are all represented in some fashion. This large multivolume resource contains various congressional reports and documents from the beginning of the federal government, and its coverage is wide and varied. One set of materials that is often overlooked, however, is the Congressional Serial Set.

Genealogists use whatever sources are available to them in pursuit of their family history: diaries, family Bibles, census records, passenger arrival records, and other federal records.

1 Using the Congressional Serial Set for Genealogical Research

Serial Number Session Horns