RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 8, 2012
KINSEARCHING
by
Marleta Childs
P. O. Box 6825
LUBBOCK, TX 79493-6825
[email protected]
Mark your calendar now to attend the Texas Czech Genealogical Society (TCGS) annual meeting in Caldwell, Texas, on 28 January 2012. The theme this year is “They Came in Ships.” Featured presenters will be Doug Kubicek, Leo Baca, Melanie Zavodny, Duwain Pingenot, and Patrick Janis. Topics to be discussed include the Gulf Coast steamship “packet” companies, Czech immigration passenger lists, the story of Frantisek and Johanna MIGL and their ten children coming to America, how to archive the past for the future, and the use of free online digital newspaper archives in genealogical research. The Frontier Brigade Band will play music performed by brass bands during the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s.
Registration at the Caldwell Civic Center will begin at 8:00 a. m. The meeting will adjourn at 5:00 p. m. Full registration costs, which include lunch, are $25 for members and $35 for non-members if registration is postmarked on or before January 10; after that date, the price is $30 for members and $40 for non-members. At-the-door registration for all individuals will be $45. Checks, payable to TCGS, may be mailed to Bennie Stasny, 8402 Shenandoah Drive, Austin, TX 78753. For additional info, call 512-836-8084, e-mail [email protected], or go to the society's website at www.txczgs.org.
Do you have ancestors or relatives who resided in the Cornhusker State? If you do, you may find helpful information in the new book, GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH IN NEBRASKA by Ruby Coleman.
As the author states in her introduction, this publication is not meant to be a comprehensive guide to Nebraska materials pertaining to family research. Despite that statement, she touches on numerous resources, including some that people may often overlook. Subjects include the history of the state’s settlement, colonization and development of the state by the railroad, the court system and its various types of records, cemetery and vital statistics records, probates, guardianships and adoptions, land and naturalization documents, county histories, censuses (territorial, state, and federal), school and military records, institutional materials (asylum, prison, and poor house, for example), religious records, orphan trains, cattle brands, genealogical collections in Nebraska libraries and repositories, and details about contact information for and records available of each county.
One of the most interesting chapters concerns ethnic groups in the state. Coleman points out, for instance, that by the year 1880, more than twenty percent of the population was foreign born; the most numerous were of German, Swedish, Irish, or Bohemian descent. In 1910, one-eighth of all Czechs living in the United States were inhabitants of Nebraska. Other groups she mentions are Danes, African-Americans, and Native Americans (the major tribes in the area being Ponca, Omaha and Otoe, Pawnee, Cheyenne and Arapahoe, Sioux, Santee Sioux, and Winnebago.)
Heavily illustrated, Coleman’s text provides brief but concise data regarding many of the records necessary in locating Cornhusker forebears. Whether a family remained in the state for a long time or moved on after staying only a few years, individuals who are tracing kinfolks in this Great Plains state will want to see what GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH IN NEBRASKA has to offer.
The 109-page soft-bound work has attractive covers, illustrations of documents, photographs, maps, a list of recommended internet sites, and a bibliography of suggested reading. To the book’s price of $25.95, buyers should add handling charges of $4.90 for one book and $2.50 for each additional copy. Checks or money orders may be mailed to Family Roots Publishing Company, LLC, P. O. Box 830, Bountiful, Utah 84011-0830 (phone 801-992-3705; fax 815-642-0103). Online credit card purchases may be made at [email protected].