Heartland Genealogy

One of the best parts of attending genealogy society meetings is discovering new research tools. I recently attended a meeting of the Brown County Genealogy Society (Kansas) where Cindy Cruz of the Topeka Genealogical Society presented an excellent program on using newspapers for genealogy research. During her presentation, she recommended the Library of Congress'  U.S. Newspaper Directory  as a way to identify newspapers that were published in a particular community. The directory is an outstanding resource when you're trying to answer questions such as: What newspapers were published in this town? When were they published? Where are copies known to exist? Knowing that a newspaper existed is often the first step toward finding an obituary, marriage notice, legal advertisement, or local news item about an ancestor. Looking Beyond the Directory While I have used the Library of Congress directory in the past, my own workflow has gradually evolv...

Do you remember GeoCities? Or the genealogy forums on Genealogy.com? Although the forums on Genealogy.com are no longer active, much of their content can still be found. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the countless genealogy websites that once lived on GeoCities. Many of those pages—and the research they contained—have simply disappeared. No one can guarantee that today's websites will still be available twenty years from now. That's why I'm placing my faith in organizations that have a long-term commitment to preserving information, particularly FamilySearch, WikiTree, and the Internet Archive. They form an important part of the preservation plan that ChatGPT recently suggested for my genealogy research. Among its recommendations were: Export and preserve your blog in multiple formats (WordPress export, full site backup, PDF/EPUB collections) and archive it with the Internet Archive. Create a comprehensive finding aid and legacy guide desc...

Discovering the Story of Neosho Falls, Kansas One of the joys of genealogy research is that a search for an ancestor often uncovers the history of the communities where they lived. Understanding the town can help explain the lives of the people who called it home. While going through my files, I came across several photocopied pages about Neosho Falls, Woodson County, Kansas . Unfortunately, the pages are missing the title page and publication information. The even-numbered pages are headed "Southeast Kansas," suggesting that may be the title of the book, but I have not yet been able to identify the exact source. Even without the complete citation, the article provides a fascinating overview of one of Kansas' oldest communities. The Rise of Neosho Falls According to the article, Neosho Falls traces its beginnings to April 6, 1857 , when Col. N. S. Goss and I. W. Dow arrived from Iowa and discovered that only two settlers—Judge John Woolman and Joh...

Here's a smoother version that keeps your conversational style while improving the flow and readability. Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: It's  Saturday Night  again— time for some more  Genealogy Fun!! Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the  Mission Impossible  music, please!): 1)  Did your family go on vacation? Describe one or more vacations you took with your birth family or later with your spouse and children. While my husband and I haven't taken an  annual  vacation every year, we've been fortunate to travel to many parts of the United States. Some trips were purely for sightseeing, while others combined family history research with travel. Our travels have taken us to: Rocky Mountain National Park, Dinosaur National Monument, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hoover Dam, Zion National Park, and Colorado Springs Following the Oregon Trail to Portland...

Telling a Railroad Story Through Song One of the most rewarding parts of genealogy is finding new ways to share our ancestors' stories. Census records, city directories, and newspaper articles tell us the facts of their lives, but music has a unique ability to capture the emotions behind those facts. Recently, I wrote a biography and a "Day in the Life" narrative about my great-grandfather, Judson Foster Crawford , who spent decades working for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway in Dodge City, Kansas. As I researched his career, I found myself imagining the dedication, hard work, and perseverance required of a railroad switchman during the early twentieth century. That inspired me to try something different. Using ChatGPT, I created original lyrics celebrating Judson's life and long railroad career. I then used Suno to transform those lyrics into a folk-inspired song titled "The Strength of Judson Crawford." To accompany the mus...

More Than a Marriage License – The Marriage of William C. Odle and Lura Briggs One of the pleasures of genealogy is discovering that there is often more than one record documenting the same event. A marriage license may provide the basic facts, but county clerks sometimes preserved additional records that contain details unavailable anywhere else. Several years ago, I wrote to the Warren County Clerk in Warren County, Indiana , requesting copies of the marriage records for my relatives William C. Odle and Lura Briggs . Along with the expected marriage license and return, the clerk also photocopied pages from the county's marriage register—a large journal that recorded information from the marriage application across several pages. Those additional pages turned a routine marriage record into a much richer genealogical resource. Marriage License The marriage license records that William C. Odle and Lura Briggs were licensed to marry on 19 October 1905 in War...