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1985–today
The dated record: The collection's growth is best told in the figures its own era published, kept here as a dated series rather than merged. Genealogy visitors numbered 26,000 in 1985. By 1990 the department held more than 169,000 volumes and 185,000 microtext items — the largest genealogy collection in a public library in the United States, second under one roof only to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. A Foellinger Foundation grant of up to 250,000 dollars in 1989 bought the 1920 census microfilm on its release in 1992, making the library then the only public library in the country holding complete federal census microfilm from 1790 to 1920. A June 1990 expansion raised the department to 160 seats and 60 microtext machines. The Federation of Genealogical Societies held its conference in Fort Wayne in 1991; a Chamber of Commerce and library study of the period counted about 42,000 genealogy visitors a year, 68 percent of them from outside Allen County, bringing more than 4,000,000 dollars a year in indirect economic impact. The Reynolds Society endowment was established in 1991 to sustain the collection.
Later counts: The News-Sentinel put the collection at 350,000 print items and 513,000 microtext items in 2009. Witcher's handout with data through the end of 2020 gives 516,200 print and 667,200 microtext items; a more recent handout gives 558,000 print and 795,800 microtext. In the expanded Main Library of 2007 the Genealogy Center took the second floor. The National Genealogical Society's 2026 conference is scheduled for Fort Wayne, 27–30 May 2026 — the current-day file carries the city's preparations.
Sources:
- Slater-Putt, Beyond Books (1995), ch. 3 — the 1985 and 1990 figures, the Foellinger grant, the 1990 expansion, the 1991 conference and the Reynolds Society.
- News-Sentinel, 2009, as carried in Wikipedia, "Allen County Public Library" — the 2009 counts; Curt B. Witcher, Genealogy Center handouts — the 2020 and recent counts.