The Heritage Quest Database

happy heritage database people
How to Access Heritage Quest?

Click Here to Enter Heritage Quest Online (Current Library Bar Code Required)

PLEASE NOTE: The Heritage Quest Database is provided to Washington County patrons as a service by the Washington County Library. The library cannot, and simply does not have the manpower, to provide technical assistance to each patron that uses the database. Please do not call the library asking for personal assistance in getting into the database. The Washington County Library can only assure that the database is accessible to patrons inside the library and is working for patrons outside of the library. If you are having difficulty accessing the database, please refer to this page for assistance, or you may try calling the St. George Regional Family History Training Center at (435) 673-4591. Please state that your question is regarding the Heritage Quest Database to staff at the Family History Training Center.

Common Problems

  • Q: “I can’t connect to Heritage Quest with my library barcode. I’m getting asked for a user name and password. What is the user name and password?”
    A: There is no user name and password required to access the Heritage Quest database. Only a current Washington County library card is required. If you are being asked for a user name and password, most likely, a personal firewall or a browser setting is configured incorrectly. Please refer to the security section or the cookies section.
  • Q: “The screen goes blank or the image doesn’t appear. What could be wrong?”
    A: Please determine if you are using a dial-up connection. Heritage Quest may work with a dial-up connection, but it will be quite painful. What does that mean? The census records that Heritage Quest has made available over the Internet are scanned in from microfilm dating back 50-100 years. In order for the record to be visible enough for most people to be able to see the names, the microfilm must be scanned in at a very high resolution. This high resolution increases the amount of data being transferred from Heritage Quest to the end user’s computer. If you are using a dial-up connection, Heritage Quest may work, but it probably will not.
  • Q:“What can I do if I’m using a dial-up connection, and Heritage Quest doesn’t seem to work?”
    A:Visit your local library, where a connection to the Internet is always on, and Heritage Quest always works well. Or find a friend that has DSL or a cable connection.
  • Q:“My library barcode was just working last week. Now it doesn’t seem to work.”
    A: Please make sure that your library card has not expired. As library cards need to be renewed each year from the original date of acquisition, please make sure that all information is current and up-to-date with the library; i.e. address, telephone number, etc. Please call the library to update all information at (435) 301-7580.

If you are using ProQuest for the first time, you may want to review the following requirements for your Internet browser:

The following instructions will guide you through the steps needed to configure these browser options. If you have questions, refer to your browser’s help menu.

If you are trying to configure your browser to work with Korean or Chinese characters, see Configure Your Browser to Display Chinese and Korean Characters.

Install Adobe Acrobat Reader

ProQuest provides article page images in Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) format. To view these articles, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your system. If you do not have it, you can download Adobe Acrobat Reader for free.

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Accept Cookies

Cookies are a general mechanism that allows the server side of a connection (in this case, the ProQuest Information and Learning server) and the client side of the connection (your computer) to maintain information about a particular session. By using cookies, we can keep track of your pending article retrievals and your display and search options for the current ProQuest session.

Cookies are not used by ProQuest Information and Learning to collect marketing information or for any other purpose other than to make using our products as easy and efficient as possible.

Most browsers provide an option for alerting you when cookies are used. If this option is checked, you will see an alert dialog when using ProQuest. To prevent the alert dialog from displaying every time cookie information is transferred, you should disable this alert mechanism and allow our server to accept cookies.

If using Netscape Navigator 4.75 and higher:

  1. Click Preferences on the Edit menu.
  2. Click the Advanced category.
  3. Clear the check box next to Warn me before accepting a cookie.
  4. Click OK.

If using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x and
higher:

  1. Click Internet Options on the Tools menu.
  2. Click the Security tab.
  3. Click the Custom Level button.
  4. Scroll to the Cookies section.
  5. Select Enable under Allow cookies that are stored on your computer.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click Apply.
  8. Click OK.

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Set Your Browser’s Security to medium or medium/low

If using Microsoft Internet Explorer:

  1. Click Internet Options on the Tools menu.
  2. Click on the Privacy tab.
  3. Click Edit in the Web Sites section.
  4. Type umi.com in the Web Address field and click Allow.
  5. Click OK to save, then OK to exit the internet option
    menu.
  6. Close your browser, relaunch, and connect as you normally would.

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Correct your computer’s system date.

  1. Click Start in the lower left corner of the screen.
  2. Select Control Panels (if you are using Windows 98 or XP, select Settings and then Control Panels).
  3. Double-click Date and Time.
  4. Make sure the date is correct.
  5. Click OK.

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Configure Personal Security
Software to Allow Use of ProQuest

If using Norton Internet Security 2002:

  1. Open Norton Internet Security.
  2. Click Options at the top of the screen.
  3. Click Advanced Options at the bottom of the screen.
  4. Click Add Site at the bottom of the screen.
  5. Enter the domain name umi.com.
  6. Click OK.
  7. Click on umi.com in the window on the left side of the window.
  8. Click the Privacy tab.
  9. Change cookies to permit.
  10. Change email to permit.
  11. Click Active Content Tab.
  12. Change all pull down menus in this window to Allow.

Norton Internet Security 2003 settings for ProQuest.

  1. Open Norton Internet Security.
  2. Click Options at the top of the screen.
  3. Click On Norton Internet Security.
  4. Click on Web Content.
  5. Click Add Site at the bottom of the screen.
  6. Enter the domain name umi.com.
  7. Click OK.
  8. Click on umi.com in the window on the left side of the window.
  9. Uncheck Use Default Settings for Information about your
    browser     and set it to Permit.
  10. Uncheck Use Default Settingsfor Information about visited sitesand set it to Permit.
  11. Click OK to exit.

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Configuring Your Browser to Display Chinese and Korean Characters

The ProQuest foreign language interfaces use Unicode encoding with HTML entity references. If your browser doesn’t display these characters correctly, you may need to:

  1. Install Chinese and Korean fonts
  2. Configure your browser to display Chinese and Korean characters

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Installing Chinese and Korean
Fonts

Follow the steps below to install the fonts you need.

Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP

If you are using Internet Explorer with Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, you can download Chinese and Korean Language Support files from the Microsoft Windows update site at http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/default.htm?page=productupdates.
(For detailed instructions on enabling foreign languages in Windows, see http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q177561#Task1.)

Or download the files below from the web. These files are language packs available for Office XP from Microsoft and will install the correct fonts on your system.

  • Simplified Chinese – ie_zhc.exe
  • Traditional Chinese – ie_zht.exe
  • Korean – ie_ko.exe

Running these .exe files will install the following fonts in your system
and configure Internet Explorer to use them:

  • Simplified Chinese – MS Song, MS Hei
  • Traditional Chinese – Ming Liu
  • Korean – GulimChe

For Netscape, you need to install these fonts, then continue with Configuring Your Browser.

Following is the list of other fonts you can download from sources on the web and install:

Mac OS 9

You need to install the Language Kits supplied with the system CD to view Chinese and Korean characters in browsers. The following links provide information on installing the Language Kits.

Mac OS X

See Alan Wood’s resources for Mac OS X for complete information.

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Configuring Your Browser to Display Chinese and Korean Characters

Internet Explorer 5 and above:

If you did not download and install .exe files to install your fonts,
you will need to configure your browser. Follow these steps:

  1. Open Internet Explorer.
  2. Click on Tools.
  3. Select Internet Options.
  4. On the General Tab, click on Fonts
  5. Select the appropriate fonts for each script. Select the font of your
    choice (for example, Arial Unicode MS)
    for Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional and Korean.

Netscape 6.1 and above:

  1. Open Netscape.
  2. Click on Edit.
  3. Select Preferences.
  4. In left pane (under Appearance) select Fonts.
  5. In right page, open the list of Fonts for: and select the
    desired character set (for example, Simplified
    Chinese    ).
  6. Select a font (for example, Arial Unicode MS)
    from the list for each of the other options.

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