1. Family Files- we would go to these files that are sorted by family name (example: Emma Armstrong) that you need information on. These family files have a variety of items that have been extracted from newspaper, and prior research, over the past 60 years of the society. It could have obituaries, marriage records, probate records, biographies or miscellaneous notes. These are in folders in the multiple file cabinets.
2. Obituary index files- These files are two sets of cabinets, one is the index by name and the other has a transcribed newspaper obituaries by year for the index. (from 1870’s to 1975) After 1975 the family files are used.
3. Cemetery census- These are a set of binders that are from the early years of reading and locating the stones. This has a few cemeteries that have allowed us to copy their books/ records. These records even have those unmarked burials, which may not have a stone.
4. Community History books- Our collection has almost every town having a book that was compiled for their centennial in the 1980’s. This also includes our county history book that has hundreds of biographies, that was made in 1919.
5. Directory of town or county- These vary from year to year, if it is a town or county directory. These are a great resource to locate them and which community they lived in.
6. Maps- from homesteading to this current year. These can be used to track how long they owned land and where it was located, so that you can put them on the map where they lived and what they did for an occupation. Maybe you want to stand on the place they once stood; we can get you pinpointed to that location.
7. Place Names of Custer County: is a set of green binders that details all of the places that has a name that involved: Schools, Post Offices, towns, and communities. These may tell you why the community was named as it was. (Ex: French Table area was named for the pioneers that came from French speaking old countries.)
8. Place Names of Broken Bow: is a set of red binders that have a wide variety of items on the Businesses of Broken Bow. These have things like: Bakery, Livery, Blacksmith, Jeweler, Banks, café and medical connections. These might have items about the people and had the Bakeries or where they were located.
9. Military collection – Binders and scrapbooks with photos and listings of the various eras. We do have a file started on this
10. School District histories – have the 384 school districts that Custer County has had over the century and some have students that attended.
11. Photos - We have an extensive set of photos that include: prints of Solomon D. Butcher: early sod houses; miscellaneous photos in several binders and cabinets: of photo of towns, and businesses.
12. Mortuary Records – these are a copy of the records that they kept at the time of death of a family member. Some of these are complete and yet some are very sparse on information, like cause of death of place of burial.

 

 

For research in the middle of Nebraska (from Custer County and north to the state line), you would use various location to find you relatives that once lived or was involved in a community. Most places have newspapers, community history books and maps at their location and some have more in their archives.

 

Don't you just love old photographs? Portraits and snapshots of people from long ago are so intriguing, whether or not you can identify the people in them. And it's interesting to compare historical photos of places to the same location toay. Maybe you have a photograph or two of an event that would have likely occurred only once. If you're able to research the photo, sometimes you can find something significant about that event.

 

Among photos my Grandma Violet Bell possessed that came to her through her parents, Art & Sadie McGrath and grandparents Josiah & Sarah Negley, were these unused postcard pictures of the grain elevator fire in Eldorado.  I don't know who took the photos, but I'm sure that my Negley family members, who had lived in that area of Clay County since the 1880's would have witnessed the fire first-hand. Josiah, Eldorado's Justice of the Peace, and his sons Bill and Cal may have even helped with efforts to put it out. The people in these photos are not identified, but my Negley relatives could be some of them.

 

The currently unincorporated village now consists of only a few houses clustered at the corner of Hwy 14 and Road 324 in northern Clay County. The old streets of Eldorado are now paved in cornfields, the railroad tracks were torn out years ago. Eldorado's peak population in 1910 was 100. The writing on the back of these photos, confirmed by reports in newspapers throughout Nebraska date the fire on April 30, 1914. The fire may have been one of the most exciting things to ever happen there.

 

 

The plant was insured, and by the end of May an elevator from Stockham was being moved to Eldorado.

 

 

 

Mr. Nelson B. Updike was born in New Jersey in 1871 and was living in Harvard, Nebraska by the time he was 8 years old with his parents, Edward and Mary. He married Miss Metta Babcock and they had two children, Hazel and Nelson, Jr. The family moved to Omaha by 1900. Nelson became a millionaire dealing in land, grain and livestock. In 1895 he began buying small town grain elevators and built the Updike Elevator Company to as many as 100 elevators around the state. He was one of the organizers of the Omaha Grain Exchange. He had controlling interest in the Platte Valley Land and Investment Company. In 1920 he purchased the Omaha Bee and later the Omaha Daily News and consolidated them, then in 1928 sold the paper to William Randolph Hearst.

 

By 1914, Nelson was probably a very rich man from his investments in land, livestock and grain. The loss of $30,000 in one grain elevator might not have been devasting to him personally. The Eldorado elevator was a significant entity of the Updike Elevator Company, though not because of the amount of grain it handled. If he had any sentimental feelings toward Eldorado, I don't know. But the elevator in Eldorado was reportedly the first grain elevator Mr. Updike purchased in 1895.² The seed that planted his fortune began right there in Eldorado, Nebraska.

 

 

¹ "Eldorado Has a Big Fire", Hamilton County Advocate, Aurora, Nebraska, May 5, 1914, pg 7, col 2

 

 

I have just finished digitizing probates that I was assigned to do. I digitized files numbered 1 to 1817 from 1882 to 1937. I could’ve digitized more, but my orders said only to go to December 1937. This was approximately 1897 files with approximately 68,600 images. That’s an average of 36 pages per file. The largest probate had 301 pages, and the smallest had 3 pages. Okay, enough statistics as I’m sure that bored some of you.
Some probates are digitized and online. Try the collections at Ancestry and FamilySearch. Many state archives have probates on microfilm. History Nebraska has Nebraska probates on microfilm. Probates are located at the county courthouse in the office of the County Court Clerk. They are a court document.
For those of you not familiar with probates, this is often what is included
Petition
Will
Order for Hearing
Affidavit of publication
Affidavit of mailing
Proof of will
Certificate of probate
Order for letters
Bond
Oath
Letters
Petition for Det. Of Heirs
Order re: claims
Decree determining heirs
Inventory
Certificate to Register of Deeds
Appointment of Appraiser
Appraisal
Judgment on Claims
Appraisal by county judge
Petition re: Inheritance tax
Decree on inheritance tax
Inheritance tax certificate to county treasurer
Final report
Petition for settlement
Order for hearing
Order on report
Final decree
Inheritance tax receipt
Estate tax receipt
Discharge
Claims
That probably sounds like a boring list. But there can be valuable information in them.
The first page, typically the petition for probate of will has a lot of good genealogy information. Usually it has the date the person died (or an approximate if not known), where he/she died, the list of heirs, who the petitioner is (often the widow or a child), an approximate value of the estate, and a date and signature of petitioner. That date is considered the date of the probate.
Here is a sample:

 

What I found interesting on this one is that this widow was pregnant when her husband passed away. It also gives ages of the children, which can be helpful. Later in the probate there is another list giving the date of birth and name of the child who was born. What?! I can find a child’s date of birth in a probate!
You can also ALMOST ALWAYS find out what funeral home served your ancestor. Often there is a bill (claim) from the funeral home for the cost of the funeral.
Sometimes there is a claim (bill) from the cemetery board for the purchase of a lot. Sometimes (but rarely) you can locate the EXACT lot they are buried in. Also sometimes (but rarely) you can find a bill for the gravestone and a description.
Here is a photo of one with the EXACT plot:

Also sometimes, but rarely, you can find a cause of death in a probate. I found a probate that said the deceased passed away “from wounds inflicted upon him by (John Smith)”. I changed that name for privacy. However, if you read that, wouldn’t you want to look for more information? I would and did. Was this an accident, a murder, a fight, etc.? That is a reason to look in the newspapers and the court records for more information.
Of course, the will (if there is one) has good information. You can find out what your relative considered important by who and what he/she left his/her money to. Did they leave some to charity? Did they give it all to their children?
If there isn’t a will, don’t give up that there is NOT a probate. Often, it’s the opposite. There is a probate because the judge might have had to decide who got what. The probate is likely shorter but still there.
Hope this helped you learn something about probates and you found it interesting. I can’t wait to get more of my ancestor’s probate records. Feel free to share your stories about what you found in the probates on our Facebook page.

As the family genealogist I began receiving old photo albums and boxes of pictures and documents from my family some time ago. Faded memories of riffling through mom’s things with her come to me when I pull out one of those boxes to digitize them. That’s where my interest in postcards started.
Specifically, a RPPC (real picture post card) of a great uncle sent to my great-grandmother. Though I don’t recall the specifics today, I remember the sight of the postcard and the emotion it evoked in me. Who was that man, straw hat and overalls, silly grin with squinty eyes, who wrote a brief note to my great-grandma letting her know he would be home soon? How peculiar and delightful.  

Those RPPC’s are the desired find for a genealogist – a one-time picture sent by mail to a loved one or friend. Not only do you get the picture, which is a gem in its own right, but also the address of the recipient. “Address” is a loose term here –my family resided in rural, small towns. All a letter needed to find its way to them was the recipient’s name, city, and state.
As I got older I realized there were some souvenir postcards in those boxes too – not as delightful as the RPPC’s, but still, a brief piece of information sent from one family member to another. I truly enjoy reading what my ancestor’s and their FAN club said to one another, even if it’s just “to my loving sister, expect to be home by week’s end”.
When researching a city or town, these postcards can provide great insight into the community. Which buildings do you find on postcards for a specific city or town? If it found its way onto a postcard, someone felt it was special enough of a site to capture the image and offer it to travelers to share with their friends and family back home. Postcards provided an avenue for people to share images of their travels with others for a fee that was far less than that of taking a picture and having it developed, not to mention the convenience.

These days I am bordering on being a postcard collector. I often rummage through postcards at flea markets and antique stores, and I’m guilty of purchasing more than one of these little beauties off of Ebay.
Much like those historic photographs found in antique stores, those postcards could be important to some other genealogist who does not know it exists. I often find myself engulfed in what I call “random research”. Who wrote those words, and can I get them to a family member who will appreciate them like I appreciate my family’s postcards?
Many of my family postcards were written in pencil, and as time passes those words fade. Thankfully, we live in an age where we can digitize those little nuggets so easily – nearly all of us carry a camera with us at all times. For under $100, you can purchase a scanner you can use in your home to scan those postcards to a .tiff file – an option that was not affordable just a few years ago.  
There are some fantastic postcards from Nebraska floating around out there, and I am a sucker for them all. Though I find most of mine at antique stores or on Ebay, there are other places you can look. Many different websites sell “vintage” postcards, unused, for collectors. I personally prefer those someone has written upon.

Do you have a story about how a postcard impacted your genealogy? We'd love to hear all about it! Please feel free to share your stories with us on our Facebook page.