If your genealogy research takes you to Missouri, professional genealogist Kathleen Brandt has 4 places you need to check out. Show me the records! (It is the Show Me State, after all... )

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Kathleen is the founder and chief researcher at a3Genealogy. She has worked on episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? (including appearing in the Tim McGraw episode), PBS' Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, and the History Channel's How the States Got Their Shape. Kathleen is based in Missouri and has some excellent insight to where we should start looking.
Click the "play" arrow to watch this short video with Kathleen's suggestions, along with what each repository has.
Links to Places Mentioned:
- Missouri State Archives, Jefferson City
- State Historical Society of Missouri, with locations in Cape Girardeau, Columbia, Kansas City, Rolla, St. Louis, and Springfield
- Midwest Genealogy Center, Independence
- National Archives at Kansas City and the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis
You can find out more about Kathleen at a3Genealogy, as well as on her blog. You can also watch a previous interview with Kathleen where she shares how she approaches brick wall problems.
Added to the list should be the St. Louis Mercantile Library which has countless original documents in its special collections: http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/collections/index.html. Additionally, it is indispensable for anyone with ancestors involved with inland waterways (http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/pott/index.html) and railways (http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/barriger/index.html).
Thanks for the tip, Jody!
One of my favorites. There are so many wonderful repositories in MO. Hard to choose when have to narrow to only 3-4.
History & Genealogy at St. Louis County Library is a secret research library – even within it’s own state. Three years ago I was at the FGS / Rootstech genealogy conference in Salt Lake City and was approached by a woman who had no idea we existed. She lived right around the corner.
History & Genealogy at St. Louis County Library is home to the National Genealogical Society Collection – which includes over 15,000 published family histories that can be inter-library loaned anywhere in the U.S. We have roughly 95,000 individual book titles in our collection for research in Missouri and Mississippi river states, the entire Eastern United States, and Germany, Switzerland, French Canada, and the British Isles. We add roughly 5,000 new titles per year – in 2017, that’s included large purchases for Indiana, Pennsylvania, Germany, and nearly 1000 Civil War unit and battle Histories, Diaries, Letters, and biographies.
History & Genealogy is home to the only complete collection of Canton Bern Church Books in the United States as well as a large, if not the largest, collection of German Ortssippenbucher. For people of German or Swiss ancestry, or people seeking ancestors who came to Missouri from East of the Mississippi, you really should come check us out! We take great pride in providing researchers with a high level of service and would love to help guide you in your genealogical research in Missouri and beyond!