Heartland Genealogy

Three Family Notes from the Dodge City Daily Globe (1929) Long before newspapers were digitized and searchable online, genealogy research often meant spending hours at the library with microfilm readers, photocopiers, and a notebook. One of my research trips to the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka—years before the World Wide Web—produced a page of handwritten notes from the Dodge City Daily Globe . At the time, I simply recorded the items that mentioned members of my family, knowing they might prove useful someday. Today, those notes have become another Friday Find . The items appeared in the Dodge City Daily Globe on Monday, January 28, 1929 , page 3, column 5. Miss Esther Crawford , daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Crawford of 504 Avenue G, a graduate nurse of Baylor University at Dallas, Tex., has accepted a position as operating nurse at Cooks Memorial Hospital at Fort Worth, Texas. J. F. Crawford left Saturday evening for Topeka to spend a few days on business. Mrs. P. ...

  As told by his Civil War Pension File Every Civil War pension file tells a story, but some tell much more than the military service of the veteran. They reveal the struggles of the entire family. The pension file of  Noah W. Briles , a private in Company I of the 1st Iowa Cavalry, is one of those records. At first glance, it appears to be a routine widow's pension application. Instead, it spans more than three decades and preserves details of Noah's military service, his family, his declining health, and his widow Sarah's determined effort to secure the benefits she believed her husband had earned. A Young Soldier from Iowa Noah W. Briles enlisted on  13 June 1861  at Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa, shortly after the Civil War began. He served for nearly five years with  Company I, 1st Iowa Volunteer Cavalry , receiving an honorable discharge on  15 February 1866 . Although his rank was listed as  Private , the pension file reveals something not found...

  From Indiana to the Kansas Prairie One of the things I enjoy most about genealogy is watching an ancestor's story unfold through the records they left behind. Sometimes those records tell of exciting events, but more often they reveal the quiet determination of ordinary people who built homes, raised families, and persevered through life's challenges. That certainly describes Sarah Jane Thompson , my second great-grandmother. Born in Indiana in 1843, Sarah's life took her from the forests of southern Indiana to the developing farms of Iowa and finally to the open prairies of Coffey County, Kansas. Along the way she experienced westward migration, the aftermath of the Civil War, widowhood, life as a Kansas farm woman, and the changing role of women who often found themselves managing land and finances in addition to caring for their families. Growing Up on the Frontier Sarah Jane Thompson was born on 7 August 1843 in Warrick County, Indiana , the oldest known child of Wil...

  From North Carolina to the Kansas Prairie One of the things I enjoy about creating narrative reports from my genealogy database is that they bring together the facts of an ancestor's life into a single timeline. Once that timeline is complete, it becomes much easier to see the person behind the records. Recently, I generated a narrative report for my second great-grandfather,  Noah Washington Briles (1840–1879) . While the report contains the documented events of his life, it also provides the framework for telling his story. Below is an expanded biography based on that report. Early Life Noah Washington Briles was born in  1840 in Randolph County, North Carolina . He spent his childhood in the household of his father,  Alexander Briles , appearing with the family in the 1850 census. By 1860, the Briles family had moved west to  Coffey County in Kansas Territory , joining thousands of families seeking new opportunities on the frontier. Noah grew up during a re...