The National Institute of Standards and Technology Digital Archive

This is a site that sounds dull but turns out to be fascinating...The National Institute of Standards and Technology (yawn, right?) is digitizing its archives -- publications and photographs.  And the photo collections include their collection of aeronautical instruments and testing procedures, appliance efficiency testing projects, a collection of atomic clocks, automobile testing, and photos of the 1939 project to figure out how to preserve the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution.  I didn't have the nerve to view the collection of dental research photos.  There are pictures of crystals and glass plate photography and space beads and, well, they're up to more than 150 photo collections.

In short -- if you have scientists or engineers (or dentists) in your family, you might well find a photo of them, or of tools and instruments they might have used, in this collection.  And, as the Legal Genealogist is always reminding us, photo collections produced by US government agencies are generally copyright free!

Herbert J. Reed of the Electrochemistry Section measuring specific gravity on a battery

Mulvane Historical Museum

I had a chance to drop in to the historical museum while I was in Mulvane, KS, today.  I was impressed -- it's a very nice little museum that makes very good use of the little rooms in its old railroad depot.

They don't have genealogy resources, per se, but they do have a LOT of photographs, and many of them are accompanied by a little one paragraph profile of the people or organizations in the picture.  In addition, they have some old yearbooks and school pictures, and copies of a history of Mulvane that was done about 1975.  Mulvane started as a railroad town, and there's a lot of information about railroad life there, as well.

I'm told that the Mulvane newspaper is being digitized and should start being available this coming year.

If you have Mulvane research questions, you should definitely call the museum -- Vicki would love to try to help!

Mulvane Historical Museum
300 West Main
Mulvane, KS 67110
316-777-0506

Wichita State University Donor Biographies

Wichita State University has released an online collection of "the stories of the donors and namesakes of endowed scholarships, fellowships and other funds at Wichita State."  This is a collection of brief biographies for over 1,000 people who have been important to WSU, or who thought WSU was important.  Most bios include a paragraph about the person and a paragraph about the intent of the scholarship.  You can browse the alphabetical list at the Spirit of the Gift page.  The pages also look like they will be google-able.

Those Darn Digital Records!

Marian Pierre-Louis has been posting on the complexity of digital records this week, and today's post is about how the variety of indexes, records and actual images can make things tricky for a researcher.  I started to add an "Amen, sister!" comment regarding an example I encountered last week, but decided it was too long for a comment...

I was updating my Ancestry.com tree entry for Enoch Langel with a photo of his cemetery marker, which shows he died in 1894.  Just for grins, I checked the historical records they're suggesting for Enoch, and found a whole list of city directory listings for Enoch and his wife Esther, all of which dated after 1900.  Curious, I clicked through to one of the records...and it clearly said there was an entry for Enoch, with spouse Esther, in the 1940 directory for Lancaster, Ohio.  What gives!  Did I match the wrong cemetery marker with this Enoch?

Nope.  If you click on through to the actual digital image, you see that the directory listing is for "Langel Esther E (wid Enoch)"

So...Marian's point stands true -- you must click through to the original record, even for something as simple as a city directory.  It's good that Ancestry.com indexes Enoch's name, since it gives some help in deciding if the Esther Langel is the one you're looking for...but the index, and the fuller indexing record, are incomplete.

Makes you wonder what's hiding behind all those indexes for which we don't yet have digital originals, doesn't it!

Kansas Aviation Museum

On March 8, the Kansas Aviation Museum dedicated a new 6,500 square foot archive center.  Because I read that day's paper at dinner, rather than at breakfast, I missed the open house.  Still, what I've gleaned from the website and the newspaper article is rather cool.

The archive has an extensive collection of aviation materials, including photographs, books, magazines and periodicals, films, drawings, blueprints and FAA registration files.  The focus of the museum is on airplanes and airplane companies, but would likely offer fascinating contextual information for anyone who worked in the aircraft industry in Wichita.

For any of you out-of-towners who don't know, Wichita has been a hub of aircraft design and construction since the beginning of aircraft -- the first commercial aircraft company was founded in 1900 (before the Kitty Hawk flight) and the first successful Kansas plane flew in 1910.  By 1920, there were 21 aircraft companies in Kansas. Cessna, Beech and LearJet were all founded here, and Boeing built B-29s for WWII here.  Many aviation companies still design and build planes here, although competition is fierce for the good jobs that aviation provides.  The KAM has a great timeline here.

The museum is located in the old Wichita Airport building at 3350 S. George Washington Blvd.  Phone is 316-683-9242.  The archive is open to the public -- they recommend that you call and make an appointment so that they can be ready to help you.  You can also email the archivist at archivist@KansasAviationMuseum.org.  The website doesn't say whether they will do research for you, so you would have to call or email to ask.

Wichita's First Presbyterian Church Archives

One of Wichita's oldest churches, First Presbyterian has been around since starting in a dugout in 1869.  Members of MHGS recently got a tour of the archives, and I was blown away.  First, by the fact that they have an archives!  With five rooms, an archivist, an assistant archivist and several other volunteers!  As far as they know, they have the most extensive formal arrangement of any church in town, which is a pity, because more churches should do this.

What would a genealogist find there?  A brief list:

• lists of church staff members
• sermons
• class rosters
• minister files
• building records, including photos
• a Presbyterian newspaper that includes both local and national news
• bound copies of all service bulletins since the 1920s
• photos, both framed and in albums
• a WWII vet project done last year
• letters written between a Sunday school class and WWII servicemen overseas
• a Bible collection
• obituaries for members
• the church register of baptisms, marriages, etc
• the diaries of a member, written daily from 1864 to 1910

The church is at 525 N Broadway in downtown Wichita.  The phone number is 263-0248.  The archives are regularly open on Wednesday mornings from about 9:30 to 11:30 and by appointment.  Email the archivist at fparchive@firstpresbywichita.org.  They are willing to do some research for out-of-towners; they ask for money to cover copying charges and would appreciate a donation to help pay for the fireproof safe they've got their eyes on...

Wichita's Historic Preservation Alliance

The Historic Preservation Alliance appears to be focused on historic buildings in the Wichita area.  Their activities appear to revolve around saving historic buildings from development and touring historic places. They have a newsletter and a Facebook page.  A person (ok, I) could waste some time looking through their Then and Now section, which adds useful notes to the then and now pictures.

There is no mention of an archives on the website, but there is a list of local structures, sculptures, districts and archaeological sites that have been listed on local, state and national registers of historic places -- this list includes photos and links to the registration applications, which includes a history of the site and a discussion of why it is significant.  For example, the application for Calvary Baptist Church includes a chronological history of the building, a thorough architectural description, and brief history of the Exodusters who founded it and the growth of the black community in Wichita, and a bibliography of sources.

If you are lucky enough to find a tie to one of these buildings, this looks to be a good resource for additional information.  I expect that the HPA Facebook page might be a good place for queries about old Wichita buildings, although the page is brand spanking new and might not have many readers for a while.

1940 Census Pictures

Do you subscribe to the National Archives' flickr.com account RSS feed?  Yesterday they posted pictures from their collections of 1940 census staff, including enumerators and analysts.



Past uploads have included pictures of notable scientists (including a slew of women) and old pictures of Washington, DC.

Wichita Newspapers online

I stand corrected -- there are some Wichita papers availalbe online.  The Library of Congress Chronicling America site has several Wichita newspapers digitized and online.  Looks like the Eagle is covered until about 1906.

MHGS New database

The Midwest Historical and Genealogical Society has acquired approximately 25,000 purchase orders from a major cemetery monument company (and it's predecessor companies) in Wichita.  Some of these records date back to 1919!   There's an index on the website, and copies of the files are available for a small fee.  Very exciting!

Wichita Photos

Another great link from Wichita State University -- a joint project between WSU, the Wichita Public Library, and the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Society to provide digitized photos of Wichita.  There are approximately 1000 photos online.  The collection is searchable by keyword, date, and 20 subject categories.

Check it out at http://www.wichitaphotos.org/search.asp

WWI Plaque at Pawnee County Courthouse

On my way out of the courthouse in Pawnee City, I saw this brass plaque listing Pawnee County people who served in WWI.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice that the list only goes to K, which makes me think there's another somewhere.  Sigh.

I like the fact that they listed the Red Cross nurses as well as the soldiers!

I've put the complete list of names after a jump (I think)

Dr. Edward N. Tihen's Notes on Wichita Newspapers

I found a cool resource on the Wichita State University library website today.  Dr. Edward Tihen read and took notes on "nearly every" issue of the Wichita newspapers from 1872 to 1982.  WSU has transcriptions of these notes in searchable PDF files. They have also identified and organized notes on almost 500 topics including particular buildings, neighborhoods, individuals and events.  Each note is tagged with the date of the paper, so you could use this as an index to the microfilmed paper.

This may not be as good as a full-text, searchable archive of the newspaper, but I'm not aware of such a resource yet for the Eagle and Beacon.

Check it out at http://specialcollections.wichita.edu/collections/local_history/tihen/index.asp

Pawnee City Historical Society

The Pawnee City Historical Society, in Pawnee City, Nebraska is primarily a museum site, with more than 20 historic buildings and many exhibits.  They have recently acquired a building which they call their genealogy building, but haven't had time to really do much with it except house AMERICORPS volunteers this summer. This building is pretty much only open by appointment and a very nice lady came on a Sunday afternoon to open it up and spend about an hour (without air conditioning!) with me. 

What they have:

• Cemetery records, including directories and maps for Cincinnati and DuBois, and the actual burial records for the Pawnee City cemetery
• A booklet, written in '70s, about the history of Cincinnati and DuBois, for sale for $7. (This same booklet is available at the Beatrice library, which is only helpful if you can get to the library.)
• Some digitized photographs 
• Some old land record books from the courthouse.  The courthouse still has the Grantor and Grantee indexes and the Deed books, but the historical society has the old books that are organized by legal land description.
• A few school graduation and county fair souvenirs, mostly hidden behind glass

I got the sense that these folks know how to run a good historical museum but are in uncharted waters when it comes to offering a good genealogy library.  There have given in to the temptation to create "displays" on the flat surfaces, which makes it hard to work with the cemetery records, and the land books are in a back room until someone figures out how to work with them.  If they can find a local genealogist to give them a little advice, though, I expect they'll put together a great resource.

I entertained myself on the drive back to my hotel thinking about what a visiting genealogist really wants from a local library...

Beatrice Public Library

The public library in Beatrice is gorgeous.  Lovely building, nice landscaping, very interesting interior. 

They have a pretty good genealogy section, especially, as you would expect, for Nebraska.  Except for the county I was looking for...Pawnee, which is southeast of Beatrice.  I don't think it's the library's fault -- I didn't get the impression during my trip there's much of an organized genealogy force in Pawnee county. 

I did find a couple of useful things.  One was a cemetery index.  The other was a tiny history of Cincinnati and Dubois; from it I learned that Cincinnati was located in a floodplain, which discouraged the railroad, and that the combined effects of periodic floods and the railroad going elsewhere caused the residents to pretty much pack up and move north to DuBois (which is pronounce DOO Boys).  This helped explain some patterns in my data, which made me happy.

It was nice to have the genealogy section out in the main part of the library, like we...I don't know...belong?  Don't have to be hidden in a separate room?  Is the genealogy happy dance really that distracting for other library patrons?

Homestead National Monument of America

One evening during the conference, we had dinner at the Homestead National Monument.  The food was unremarkable, but the monument is kinda cool. I hadn't heard of it, but it's actually dedicated to a piece of legislation, the Homestead Act of 1862, which offered free land to anyone who could tame 160 acres of raw wilderness with a house, cultivated crops, and five years of residence.

There are two especially interesting things about the monument.  First, they have a dramatic new building with very well done displays and an interpretive film.  If you go in the evening, you may see a spectacular sunset framed in the windows.

Second, they have teamed with Family Search, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Footnote.com to digitize and index all the homestead application records at NARA.  Considering that they think that something like 70 million people today descend from homesteaders, and that homestead records can contain genealogically valuable information, I think that's great news!

I also think it's great to see how the National Park Service is trying to reach out to more than just tourists and schoolchildren.  Linking the National Archives' historical records with the NPS historical interpretation resources has a lot of potential to make genealogy a lot more fun.