Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC)

Photo by Dan Dimmock on Unsplash

In the February/March 2023 issue of the Internet Genealogy Magazine, one of the sites that were reviewed was the Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC). Let’s look.

The premise is straightforward. This free website is “an online resource that helps users discover biographical and historical information about persons, families and organizations that created or are documented in historical resources (primary source documents) and their connections to one another.”
 
The main page includes a search bar. I tried looking for an individual as well as a village in Luxembourg with no results. I decided to try something broader and searched “Wisconsin.” This resulted in many results including the Wisconsin Veterans Museum. Clicking on this link, I discovered a wealth of oral histories of soldiers.
Wisconsin Veterans Museum - Social Networks and Archival Context (snaccooperative.org)
 
Since there were so many returns, I decided to try Wisconsin, Calumet County. As I was typing this, the suggestion was Wisconsin, County Court, (Calumet County) I randomly chose one of these which included court records for Calumet County from 1850-1868. County Court, Calumet County, Wisconsin, guardianship record, 1850-1868 | WorldCat.org. It provided information for borrowing this book and its location. I suspect if I would follow through that it is likely to note these books were not available by interlibrary loan but at least I know that this book exists.
 
I’ve tried putting in a local company name and it had archived history at a local institution so there is a wide variety of information.
 
Take some time to play with this site. It is a useful tool to discover the location of historical information. According to the article, you can view their current members here. Current Members | SNAC Cooperative  Happy exploring!