A few weeks ago, I participated in a panel discussion about PERSI (the Periodical Source Index) through the National Genealogical Society’s MemberConnects! event. I invited Dawne Slater, Jeanette Sheliga to join me to discuss PERSI, learn about how to best use it for your research, and how to access the articles it indexes. You can view the video recording on NGS’s YouTube channel here.

I’ve written about PERSI in the past on this blog. The most recent series starts here. But if it has been a while, I hope you’ll watch the video and read the previous blog series. PERSI indexes articles from local genealogical societies’ journals and quarterlies sent in to the Allen County Public Library. In my opinion, PERSI is one of the most underutilized resources available to genealogists. We have become spoiled by the internet and the instant gratification that it often offers. However, IT’S NOT ALL ONLINE, though everyday more and more does become available.

PERSI is an index created by the Allen County Public Library, beginning in the late 1980s. The first versions of PERSI were published volumes. You can still find them in libraries today.

I go into more details about PERSI, how to use it, how to get copies of articles, and so on, in my previous series, so I won’t repeat myself. Those steps are the same today as they were in 2022 when I wrote those posts.

A new article was published in the January-March 2026 issue of the NGS Magazine (available to NGS members or possibly through your local library), written by Adam J. Barrone, current supervisor of PERSI at ACPL. His article has a lot of fun history about PERSI and he offers tips and techniques for using PERSI effectively.

There are to main things I always want to impart about PERSI anytime I talk about it. First, PERSI is NOT an every name index. Do not show up to PERSI, type in your ancestor’s name, find nothing, and then walk away thinking PERSI has nothing for your research. PERSI is primarily a subject/keyword index. When searching PERSI, think about what kinds of things your ancestor may have been involved with or included in. Second, there are multiple ways you can obtain copies of the articles you find in PERSI. Don’t let the extra step of needing to obtain a copy stop you from using PERSI. There are many things you can do to get a copy. I’ve written about them before, but the one that is coming up soon is to travel to the Allen County Public Library yourself. This year, the NGS Conference is being held in Fort Wayne, Indiana, blocks from the library.

PERSI can point you to articles that could be vital to your research. The information that local genealogical and historical societies collected in their journals and quarterlies could be the only place that information can be found because the originals were lost or destroyed or from personal collections. It is worth the effort!