Q. I am looking for more information about a former Mississippi State student or Starkville resident.

The Archives and Special Collections Department at Mitchell Memorial Library is home to a wide variety of unique materials documenting the history of Mississippi and Mississippi State University. 

Requests for assistance with genealogy can be submitted by the Genealogy Request Form (https://msstate.libwizard.com/f/genrequest) or be emailing Special Collections.

If you are emailing Special Collections, please be sure to include the following information:

• Your name
• Your full contact information (email and phone)
• The specific information you are looking for, such as graduation year, major, etc
• The persons full name
• Their birth and death dates, if known
• Their Mississippi county of residence, if known
• and any resources you have already consulted, such as FamilySearch or Ancestry.com

Please note: MSU Libraries DOES NOT have vital records such as birth, death or marriage certificates. To access copies of those documents, please contact the Mississippi Vital Records office in Jackson.

Other information about genealogy research in Archives & Special Collections:

To search for books or periodicals, you can search the collection starting here: https://mlp.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/msstate/search/results?te=&lm=MSUSPECCOLL. 

To search our finding aids (archival collection guides):  https://msstate-archives.libraryhost.com/

To search digitized materials, start here: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/archives-and-special-collections/

For more information about the Archives& Special Collections Department and Special Collections research: https://guides.library.msstate.edu/c.php?g=1092529

For assistance with research, please contact the Archives & Special Collections Department at:  sp_coll@library.msstate.edu. 

Archives & Special Collections hours are Monday-Friday from 8-12 and 1-5, by appointment only. Please contact the department to make an appointment at sp_coll@library.msstate.edu. Appointment requests must be received two full business days in advance, and by 5 PM Wednesday for Monday morning appointments.

The 3rd floor reading room is currently (Summer/Fall 2022) closed for construction, but patrons can access materials on the 4th Floor in the Ulysses S Grant Presidential Library Reading Room. For more information about access during this period, please contact Special Collections.