The Bridgeport History Center offers reference services for the following, as listed below. Whenever possible, the Bridgeport History Center strongly suggests that local and nearby residents visit us in person to pursue their queries, as limited staff and hours make it difficult to predict how long it may take to provide a response.
There is a $5.00 flat research fee, with an additional $.15 per photocopied page OR scan. From time to time, a search may result in no information. The research fee still applies. Please also be aware that the fee structure will be changing in the near future.
The Bridgeport History Center is unable to conduct in-depth research on behalf of patrons. However, we can fulfill short research requests such as those listed below:
Obituaries, birth announcements, wedding announcements
The Bridgeport History Center will search local newspapers for the aforementioned options. When submitting a request, please follow these guidelines.
- Limit your request to FIVE items per month.
- Whenever possible, include exact dates. The Bridgeport History Center cannot honor requests that include only the year of an event, or a whole month. The BHC can honor requests within a two week time frame for the event (EX: “June 1-10, 1930.”
- Include exact names, or known name variants (such as Mc vs. Mac).
Searches within City Directories
The Bridgeport History Center will search our city directories for the location of businesses and personal addresses. Patrons are reminded that most Bridgeport City Directories are available through Ancestry, and that they can access the material themselves through any participating member library. When submitting a request, follow these guidelines.
- Please limit your request to TWO items per month.
- Whenever possible, include exact dates. The BHC cannot honor requests that only list a decade. The BHC can honor requests that give a rough range of dates, such as “mid 1920s.”
- Exact names, or known name variants (such as Mc vs. Mac) are required.
Article Requests
The Bridgeport History Center will search local newspapers on microfilm for specific articles. When submitting a request, please follow these guidelines.
- Whenever possible, include exact dates. The Bridgeport History Center cannot honor requests that include only the year of an event, or a whole month. The BHC can honor requests within a two week time frame for the event (EX: “June 1-10, 1930.”
- Include article’s headline, subject, or names mentioned in article.
Image Requests
The Bridgeport History Center has an extensive photograph collection. While there is a substantial selection of material online, what you seek may not be available there yet. When submitting a request, please bear in mind the following.
- Before contacting the Bridgeport History Center, please look at our online photograph and postcard collections. Photographs are available here. For postcards, click here.
- If you are seeking reproductions for material that is already online, please select “image request” from the drop down menu on our contact page.
- When seeking non-digitized photographs, please provide dates, names, subjects or other information such as street addresses or organization names.
Other Requests
The Bridgeport History Center is happy to fulfill other requests, such as consulting archival collections for specific information, reviewing our records for secondary works, and so on. Due to limited time and staff, we cannot conduct in depth research queries. If your request falls under that category, we encourage you to consider coming in person or hiring a research assistant to come in on your behalf.