How SWNGS can help in researching

Often I get so wrapped up in history that I forget what the true mission of Southwest Nebraska Genealogical Society is. Yes, we preserve the written history of our tri-state corner of the world, but we do much, much more!

Within the last few weeks we have returned a family document collection to the Enright family, that they were able to share together with all the relatives that gathered for Alice Enright’s son’s funeral. We have copied the large document containing the names of all service members from our area during World War II and shipped a thumb drive containing the copy to Elsie Baldwin, who was searching for her two brothers among those named. Evie Thieben came in with a large photo loaned to her by the museum that pictured her recently deceased father, Dick Thieben, which we were able to digitalize in the frame through the glass and then copy to a thumb drive so that she could have it printed.

Most of our online website is available to the public without membership, though we certainly appreciate those who join our group for a $25 fee. Included on this site is a list of the original marriage certificates that we have in our library, district court book record citations for which the handwritten records are housed by SWNGS, and World War I registrations of all men in Red Willow County, just to name a few.

In addition we try to provide information to everyone through our Facebook presence, our newsletter and my column that will aid them in researching either their genealogical background or the history of our great country. I’ve named quite a few in the past but the next referrals are worth mentioning again.

One of the best sites for researching records is https://nebraskaccess.nebraska.gov, a link to the Nebraska Library Commission resources, which is free to all Nebraska residents by using their state identification number or Nebraska driver’s license number. Included in their informational collections are census and voter lists, family trees, birth, marriage and death records, photos, military, newspapers, books, public records plus government, land, court and wills.

Indexed records of homesteaded land are listed on this site: www.glorecords.blm.gov which is the Bureau of Land Management site. Once you are on the site, you choose Land Patent Search, a state and county, and then enter a last name, first name, etc.; you can perform this search with only a state and a last name but I would not recommend trying to do a search with just a last name due to the multitude of responses you would get. If instead you are searching to find who first settled your land, you can do a search with the land description of township, range, meridian, and section number which should be on your tax statement. Once you find the patent you are looking for, you can check for a patent image or related documents on the same page by clicking the tabs.

Now on a different note, if you ever go to www.pinterest.com/ for ideas on anything, you might be surprised to find that they have an unbelievable link to photos from several military operations over the last 100 years. Many of those in the photos are unidentified personnel and I always glance through the ones from the Vietnam era to see if I can identify one of the many young men who served from our area.

Our little genealogy society is working on some exciting new plans for the year and we welcome new members to help spark even more ideas for how we can serve this area. Our library, located at 110 West C, Suite M-3, is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-4 p.m. for help with research, copying photos, maps and historical documents or sharing information.