Want to know the real story behind an improbable local urban legend? Need to trace the history of your creaky old house that you swear is haunted? Interested in separating history from myth?

There's really only one place to go for answers. The third floor of downtown's Hamilton Public Library houses the newly named Local History and Archives department, home to a gold mine of information.

Its gatekeeper is archivist Margaret Houghton, who for nearly three decades has led inquiring minds to the history they crave.

In addition to her work at the helm of the previously named Special Collections department, Houghton, 56, has edited and authored several books, including the Vanished Hamilton series, Hamilton Street Names and Hamilton at War: On the Home Front.

Her colleagues say they'd like to "download her brain" before she retires. The Spectator spoke with Houghton to figure out what makes that encyclopedic brain tick.

Q: What kinds of things do people come to your section asking for?

A: We get anything and everything. We'll even get people who come in and say, "I want everything you have on Hamilton." Usually it turns out they're trying to do their family history.

Or we'll have someone come in and say they want everything we have on the War of 1812. It turns out they want to figure out if their ancestor fought in the War of 1812.

You just keep asking questions until you figure out what they want.

Q: What are the most common questions you get?

A: "What is the history of my house? When was it built? Who owned it?"

People also want to know if their house is haunted. A lot of people will come in and say, "I think my house is haunted and I want to know who died there."

We also have people phoning up who have a bet as to what was on the corner of so-and-so streets. Oh, and we get asked about the Evelyn Dick (torso) murder case all the time.

Q: Is there anything you won't help someone find?

A: We always try, unless it's a non-Hamilton question. I encourage curiosity. It keeps us in business.

Q: Are you ever stumped?

A: Sure. Sometimes someone will come in with a question we just don't have any information on, like ghosts. Or the person who wanted to know if there are any catacombs near Delta Secondary School. I don't know that. I don't have anything under catacombs. Somehow, it all comes back to ghosts.

Q: Any particularly proud moments on the job?

A: Three sisters came to Hamilton from North Bay. They had budgeted four days to try to figure out a family secret. Their father had never talked about his mother, and they wanted to know more about her and where they came from.

They came into the library armed only with an approximate time period and their grandmother's name. To top it off, her name was Smith.

We found a citation for her and got out the microfilm. Ten minutes later they started jumping up and down screaming. It was all laid out ... in a newspaper article.

It turned out their grandmother and great aunt were both living in sin with the same man, in the same house, at the same time. Their grandmother was pregnant with their father when she found out the man was already married to a woman in Toronto and had many children over there, too. The grandmother threw acid in his face.

It took 15 minutes from the time they walked through the door to find all this out.