CURRENT POSITION Department Manager, History and Genealogy, St. Louis County Library DEGREE MA, History, Northwest Missouri State University, 2014 FAST FACT When Trout was executive director of Muskogee War Memorial Park, OK, a historic 2019 flood caused the museum’s WWII submarine—the USS Batfish—to float for the first time in decades and nearly sent it downstream. FOLLOW slcl.org/research-learn/genealogy Photo by Lucas Peterson

Guiding Genealogy

When Brent Trout began his tenure as manager of St. Louis County Library’s (SLCL) History and Genealogy Department in April 2022, the first task he was given involved moving 12,949 linear feet of books to four different locations while the department’s new, permanent home at the Emerson History and Genealogy Center in SLCL’s Clark Family Branch was under construction. For two years, the temporary workspace for the department’s staff was a quarter of its original size. But, coming from an early career in the museum field, Trout viewed this challenging transition to SLCL as a fortunate one. 

“It probably would have taken me years to get to the level of connection with this staff had I not been in a desk farm in a two–meeting room space” during that time, he says. 

In the past three years, Trout and his staff have relocated, reinvented, and reinvigorated genealogy research at SLCL. Genealogy programming has been expanded to branches throughout the system. Attendance of genealogy programs has increased 336 percent, with new programs, presentations, and webinars for patrons researching African American, Mexican, Cherokee, Irish Catholic, and other heritages. Partnerships have been established with the Missouri State Archives, the Family History Center in Utah, FamilySearch, the St. Louis Genealogical Society, the Missouri History Museum, and many other organizations. FamilySearch scanned 4,000 rolls of the library’s microfilm and provided preservation-quality copies at no cost. 

SLCL applied for and received an LSTA Digital Imaging Grant to create the library’s first-ever digital archive, beginning in 2023 with yearbooks, city and county directories, and burial certificates. That digital archive is now being expanded with newspapers, images, atlases, and other relevant regional content, and Trout is working for SLCL to become a representative for the Heartland Hub, contributing to the Digital Public Library of America. A Memory Lab was launched to help patrons digitize and preserve legacy media. Trout proposed and created “Genealogy University,” a series of classes for up to 30 patrons each semester, which had almost 1,000 applicants upon launch in January 2024. And SLCL has been working with Scouting America and the Girl Scouts to introduce younger people to heritage research and help them earn genealogy badges. 

“Your connection to family, your connection to community, are defined by genealogy,” Trout says. 

“This [library] administration, they’re so supportive. They’ve always backed my initiatives as long as I can justify it and explain it in a way that makes sense. It’s just been a wonderful time.”