Are you curious about your ancestral roots?

Have you ever wondered about your ancestry or the history of your home? Sometimes oral stories are not as reliable and not every household is able to keep records, photos and documents. To help residents take a deeper dive into their history, Glen Cove Public Library held their first meeting of the Genealogy Club on Jan. 24. But for those who do not live in Glen Cove there is an alternate way to participate. The component of the Genealogy Club, the Genealogy Collective, which is a collaboration of North Shore libraries, will be meeting on Zoom.

The collective has librarians, genealogists, historians and authors give virtual lectures on resources to assist people in their search for their genealogy. Topics will include Latin American, Italian and African American genealogy to represent the diverse population of the North Shore.

Although the Genealogy Club is for Glen Cove residents, Steven Boerner, of Locust Valley, was permitted to attend the January meeting. An archivist, he will be the presenter at October’s Genealogy Collective meeting, which will be hosted by the Locust Valley Library.

Boerner shared his success in tracking his lineage at the Glen Cove meeting. He found that his mother’s side of the family were one of the original founders of Hartford, Connecticut. And upon looking further, Boerner learned that Captain Jacob Prickett, from the Revolutionary War, was a distant relative.

And there was more. Through more extensive research on his mother’s side, Boerner found that his Scottish ancestry led back to a ship captain in Africa fighting native slave traders. These discoveries changed his life, he said, because he realized there was a bigger world out there.

This led him to create a Facebook group during the pandemic to connect with lost family members. Using it, he was able to contact his great grandmother’s descendants that were lost for almost 100 years, he said.

“There’s a lot out there,” Boerner said. “We only just scratched the surface.”

Mercedes Morales, trustee of Glen Cove Library, is a first-generation Puerto Rican whose family are lifelong residents of Glen Cove. She is looking to find more information on her family before they immigrated to the United States. By recovering any records through her participation in the club, she hopes to someday share them with her grandson.

Starting from a blank slate, Peggy Nieri, a Glen Cove resident, has been trying to learn more about her mother’s genealogy. There were not many records kept within her family, so she was excited to discover her family history through participation in the program.

“I can’t wait to get on the computer to start looking at my ancestors and find out where they came from,” Nieri said. “I never thought about it when my family was alive and now it is interesting to me.”

The collective will have its first virtual meeting on Feb. 10. The libraries working to host the events are in Glen Cove, Bayville, Oyster Bay, Locust Valley and Glen Head. For further information, contact the Locust Valley Library or Glen Cove Library’s librarian Lydia Wen Rodgers.