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(Below) Only three years ago, Anne Anderson, a Mississippi native, founded the L. W. Anderson Genealogical Library—a fine research center in Gulfport. (Right) Anderson helps a patron track down information on his ancestors. Photographs: Geoffrey Gilbert
SOUTHERNERS 9
Making a Place for Finding the Past
Anne S. Anderson is into “family” in a very big way. As founder and director of the L. W. Anderson Genealogical Library in Gulfport, the Mississippi native can tell you about her family, about a lot of other families, and about how to find out about your family.
She had been interested in genealogy for a long time, and in 1979 she began to trace her own family’s “difficult lines,” as she calls them. “1 realized I couldn’t do my genealogy from Gulfport, Mississippi, or New Orleans or Mobile.” Her response was to change that. So in 1983, she started the library with four books in rented space.
With the help of friends and other scholars, Anderson began collecting source books, such as wills, marriage records, deed books, and more. Now the library, which is named for her grandmother, contains nearly 40,(XX) books, plus microfilm records, and it occupies an old turn-of-the-century house at William Carey College on the Coast in Gulfport.
A small, young woman with blue eyes and short blond hair, Anderson speaks quickly and with an intensity. “So many people have the idea of a genealogist as being the little old lady with the bun on the back of her head and wearing tennis shoes. That’s not the way genealogists are today.
More often than not, they are educated people, professionals. You have to know history, geography, mathematics, logistics. You’ve got to know statistics, naming patterns. You’ve got to know a little bit about a lot of things to be a very competent genealogist. I’m trying to educate the public to realize that genealogists are educated people.”
Anderson holds annual seminars to help people learn more about genealogy and even personally helps many a patron with his or her search. “We usually start by sitting them down and asking them what they can tell us about themselves, their parents, and their grandparents. From there it’s on to census reports and specific collections.”
She always stresses accuracy—and reality—in her work. “You always find people who say, ‘I go all the way back to Charlemagne.’ That’s a goody. We get that one all the time.” She laughs. “Or if it’s not royalty, it’s an Indian princess. What people don’t realize is that, generally, nobles didn’t come to America in the first place.” She points out, too, that people have been known to find out things they’d rather not know. One patron discovered that the ancestor who supposedly had his right ear bitten off in a raucous frontier
fight actually had that ear cropped when he was branded for being a criminal.
Anderson gives a bright smile. “I tend to think the skeletons in a family are really a lot of fun.” She points out how one lady she had located for a patron had birthed two of her husband’s children well after his death and how another, according to the Federal Census, officially remained 40 years old for 30 years. She laughs again and throws up her hands. “If 1 had all whitewashed people in my family, it would be dull, very dull. Besides,” she quips, “the infamous give it a little character.”
Her L. W. Anderson Genealogical Library is an undeniable success. It already ranks in the top 10 of such libraries in the South. In 1985 it was given the National Genealogical Society Award of Merit for outstanding service. Plus, the library was selected over several other sites to host the society’s 1988 national conference, which will attract genealogists from all over the world.
Still, she has grand plans. “I fully intend to grow. In fact, I won’t stop until I'm No. 1. It will take some work. It will take some money and some time, but I think over the next 5 to 10 years I can do it.” And with her determination, that’s hard to doubt.	DY.
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78 Southern Living