Omaha World Herald 1885 - 1983 Images from Omaha Public Library

Anyone doing Nebraska research will be thrilled to learn that a very extensive archive of digital images from the Omaha World Herald is available online from the Omaha Public Library on a trial basis.

Before you head over to the web site, there are a few things you need to know.

Getting an Omaha Public Library card

These records are available only if you have a library card from the Omaha Public Library. Don't have one? If you're in Douglas county, visit any branch of the Omaha Public Library and bring a photo ID and address verification.

If you have a valid library card through the Lincoln City Libraries or the Council Bluffs Public Library, you are entitled to reciprocal privileges with the Omaha Public Library. And vice versa! Your Omaha Public Library card will give you access to Lincoln City Libraries.

Live in another state and feel left out? You may purchase a non-resident membership by calling 402-444-4874. All of the details may be found on the Omaha Public Library web site.

Following my talk on newspaper research for genealogy last Saturday, I could hardly wait to get my Omaha library card. It was very easy. I presented my card from the Lincoln City Libraries, filled out a form, showed my photo ID and within minutes there was an Omaha Public Library bar code label affixed to my Lincoln card. Within a couple days, I received confirmation that my Omaha card was verified with the Lincoln library. Easy!

Going Online and Searching


I'm sure it's not surprising to learn that I spent most of last Sunday searching the database, beginning with key dates of deaths, births and marriages. The images use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanning, so sometimes you have to use spelling variations or truncated words to find what you are looking for. But in less than half an hour, I had dozens of hits on much of my eastern Nebraska kin.

You can narrow your search by your own selected time frame or chose from U.S. Presidential Eras or Eras in American History. You can go directly to a specific date and browse the pages for that date. You can specify that your results show best matches first, chronological order or reverse chronological order. You can also add search terms in addition to a name you are searching. This is definitely one of the easiest and most intuitive newspaper searches available online.

Provided by Newsbank, Inc.


The Omaha World Herald collection is provided via an arrangement with Newsbank, a leading provider of newspaper images online. Genealogybank.com is a division of Newsbank and offers many of the same images.

Keep in mind that the Omaha World Herald images are available via the Omaha Public Library on a trial basis. The subscription to maintain this service is expensive and if you find it valuable to your research and want the Omaha Public Library to continue to have this available, you need to let them know.

Links


Link to the Omaha Public Library Genealogy Resource page with information about the trial database

Follow Omaha Public Library on Twitter

Omaha Public Library on Facebook

The link to this article is http://longlostrelatives-smp.blogspot.com/2012/06/omaha-world-herald-1885-1983-images.html

Genealogy Events in Nebraska - June 2012

Do you have an event to add? Please email me the details. Click for all events for 2012.

Date & Location	Description
June 1, 2012 7:00 p.m. LDS Family History Center 11027 Martha St Omaha, NE	GO-PAF Meeting Program to be announced
June 3, 2012 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Walt Branch Library 6701 South 14th St Lincoln, NE	Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society Drop-In Session – assistance with your research featuring Rayma Shrader
June 5, 2012 8:30 p.m. Family History Library 3000 Old Cheney Road Lincoln, NE	Immigration
June 7, 2012 1:00 p.m. St. Paul United Methodist Church 12th and M Streets Lincoln, NE	LLCGS Discussion Group led by Bob Houser
June 12, 2012 8:30 p.m. Family History Library 3000 Old Cheney Road Lincoln, NE	Emigration
June 12, 2012 7:15 p.m. Dick Administration Building Union College 3800 S. 48th St Lincoln, NE	Lincoln Lancaster County Genealogical Society monthly program: Obituaries and So Much More. Presented by Bill Eddy and Debbie Way
June 16, 2012 9:00 a.m. – Noon Mormon Trail Center 3215 State St Omaha, NE	Greater Omaha Genealogical Society free class: Finding Family on the Internet: Is It Accurate?; There’s More in the Courthouse than Vital Records
June 20, 2012 2:00 p.m. Great Room Chatelaine 6201 Normal Blvd Lincoln, NE	LLCGS Discussion Group led by Lila Garner
June 23, 2012 11:00 a.m. W. Dale Clark Library 215 S. 15th St Omaha, NE	Extra! Extra! Read All About It – using newspapers for genealogy research. Presented by Susan Petersen of LongLostRelatives.net

Those Book Places - Beatrice Public Library

Beatrice Public Library
Beatrice, Nebraska

While in Beatrice, Nebraska over the weekend to visit the Homestead National Monument of America, there were some other places I wanted to visit during this day trip.

On the top of the list was the Beatrice Public Library. The main reason is because this library houses the book collection of the Nebraska State Genealogical Society.

Saturday's visit did not have a research plan. I just wanted to stop in and browse through the collection so that I would know the lay of the land for a future research day.

I was thrilled with what I found here! A very helpful librarian directed me to the Heritage Room, the Nebraska State Genealogical Society collection as well as the other genealogy reference books offered by the library.

For matters of full disclosure, this is where I have to admit that over the past decade, the majority of my genealogy research has been done online. As much as I love libraries, I've managed to remain quite busy just with my online resources and sorting and scanning the documents in my family archive. I've never been to a major library or archive before, so in my limited experience, I was very pleased with what greeted me!

A portion of the collection of
the Nebraska State Genealogical Society

I've always said that I am quite fortunate that my ancestors settled and lived in about a 200 mile radius of where I live. Local resources are bountiful. In the NSGS collection, I found county histories, centennial history books, city directories from what appears to be every county in Nebraska. There's a variety of little gems, family histories, indexes and resources I would never have thought about before.

Heritage Room
Climate Controlled with a glass enclosed rare books section

My first stop was to visit the Heritage Room, which is a climate controlled environment. If you love that smell of an old bookstore (or perhaps an area of your own personal library!), you'll get the adrenalin rush as you walk in. The room is dark and there are four computers and a microfilm reader and microfilm reels. The computers were being used by fellows watching You Tube videos and surfing the net. I felt like I was the outsider here, actually looking through some of the books!

My father's grandparents lived in Beatrice in the 1930s and 1940s. I had discovered the addresses of their residences in city directories on Ancestry.com, but thought I would look through the city directories. My browsing turned up a third address in Beatrice where my great grandmother had lived!

I spent the rest of my time looking through the NSGS collection. My eyes popped when I saw a thick book with "Amherst" on the binding. Anytime I come across anything relating to Amherst, I have to take a look because my friend and fellow geneablogger, Jenna Mills (Desperately Seeking Surnames) has ancestors who lived there. I've been following her stories about tracking down Mary Evingham for a couple years now. As I looked through the book, I sent Jenna a message on Facebook to get some specifics on names and dates. She responded within a couple minutes and I was on the amazing race through this book! Ah! I found not only references but a lengthy bio of her Thomas N. Smith. I took some quick photos and emailed them off to Jenna.

Now - if you'd told me a couple months ago that I'd be using an iPhone for library research, I'm not sure I would have thought that possible. So Jenna and I messaged and emailed back and forth with each of my new discoveries on her family. I was every bit as excited as if I had been researching my own family. Now, I've got to convince her to make a research trip to Nebraska one of these days!

After lunch, I drove around Beatrice to the addresses where my great grandmother lived. The first was a house which could have been there for 70 years. The next address turned out to be a vacant lot. The third address is that of a Baptist Church. So that means I need to dig deeper to find out how long the church has been at that address and what was located there before.

I returned to the library to do some browsing in Lancaster, Cass and Nuckolls county books. My only "hit" was a photograph of a first cousin, once removed and he was barely visible in this photo of about 50 men.

I used the online card catalog in the library to search resources in the collection. Even as tech savvy as I am, I couldn't find a way to click "back" to go back to my search results after I located a book in the catalog. So I again turned to my iPhone and searched the catalog from there.

Now that I know the lay of the land, I will do some more searching of the online catalog and make a list of the books I want to look at on my next visit. I will definitely have a much better defined task list ready for my next day trip.

Overall, I thought the library was very inviting, comfortable and the staff quite helpful. Although, I think that ALL libraries need to stop shelving books within 12 inches of the floor. Eyes that are six decades old with bifocal correction just can't read those Dewey Decimal numbers at that angle! And the knees don't bend as well as they used to!

As Arnold said, "I'll be back!"

Beatrice Public Library
100 N. 16th Street
Beatrice, Nebraska

Search the catalog and get hours of operation here

Seeing the Homestead Act Up Close and Personal

Heritage Center
all photos on this page taken by
and copyright Susan Petersen 2012

Not only does 2012 mark the release of the 1940 census records, it is also the 150th anniversary of the Homestead Act of 1862. The Homestead Act opened millions of acres across the nation to settlement and cultivation. Thirty of our nation's 50 states had homestead lands at some time during the Homestead Act's existence (1863 - 1986).

For the past month, all four pages of the Homestead Act have been on display at the Homestead National Monument of America near Beatrice, Nebraska. This was the first time the Act had been on display outside of Washington, D.C. and the first time all four pages have been publicly displayed as a unit.

The major events celebrating the Homestead Act at the monument have drawn to a close and the folding chairs under the Chautauqua tent were packed up yesterday morning. Tomorrow is the last day that the Homestead Act will be on display in Nebraska.

Yesterday morning, I took off on the short drive to Beatrice to spend the morning at the Homestead National Monument of America and to see the Homestead Act.

Honor to the Homestead States

Not one to enjoy crowds, I was glad I had waited a week for my Homestead adventure. About 2,000 people were on hand for last weekend's events. When I arrived shortly after 9 a.m. yesterday morning, there were less than 10 cars in the parking lot. No rush, I took my time to savor the exhibits before actually viewing this historic document.

The entrance to the Heritage Center is lined with outlines of each state where homesteads were issued. The cutouts on each graphic represent the proportional amount of land that was homesteaded in each state.

As you can see, a significant portion of Nebraska was open to homesteaders.

I have ancestors who were homesteaders. On Fold3.com, I have discovered the homestead documents of my 2nd great grandfathers, John Bellinger and Daniel Landon, as well as other affiliated family members.

Reading those documents provides much insight to the lives my ancestors lived. To "prove up," the homesteaders had to submit documentation that they had lived on the property for at least five years and describe the improvements made to the property. This usually meant that friends or relatives had to attest to knowing the homesteader and describe the improvements.

Palmer-Epard Cabin

On the grounds of the Homestead National Monument of America is the Palmer-Epard cabin, which was moved to the grounds in 1950. It's a small one-room home where a pioneer family ate and slept. Peeking through the windows provided a glimpse of life in the 1880s.

The Freeman Graves

Down the hill from the Heritage Center are the graves of Daniel and Agnes Freeman. Freeman was the very first homesteader. The 160 acres of land occupied by the Homestead National Monument of America are on the very homestead where the Freemans lived and worked.

The Homestead Act of 1862

As might be expected, stepping up to view the Homestead Act was a breathtaking and emotional experience. As I read the first words of the document, my eyes filled with tears, realizing that I was connected to this piece of history through my ancestors. It also saddened me, knowing how many of our Native population was displaced because of this westward expansion.

Roaming the grounds of the monument was quiet, peaceful and calming. At times, I did feel as though I had been taken back in a time machine to the lands settled by my ancestors.

Should your travels bring you through Nebraska, I certainly can recommend you make plans to visit the Homestead National Monument of America.

Links:

Homestead National Monument of America

LongLostRelative's Homestead Act Toolbox with links to news articles

Virtual tour of Homestead National Monument (more than 50 photos that I took yesterday)

1940 Nebraska Census is 60 percent complete

As of this morning, the 1940 Nebraska Census records are 60% indexed and 45% arbitrated. You can help get Nebraska indexed and available online by volunteering and indexing records.

1940 Census - Nebraska

Get started indexing here.