Helpful hints for genealogy research

Susan Doak

SW Nebraska Genealogy Society

McCOOK, Neb. -- When I am researching I often come across little stories of Nebraska that strike me as fascinating and yet not quite enough to do a whole article on. What you will find within these stories may not seem to be genealogy related, but they are. Hopefully someone will be plugging one of the subjects into a Google search bar and find a tidbit of information on their family history that finishes a chapter for them!

Remember when searching for something on the internet, quotation marks surrounding your search gives you results that match only what you are looking for such as "Robert Robertson." If you want to find Robert Robertson in Nebraska, try this: "Robert Robertson" + Nebraska.

Now for my research leftovers! Did you know that the largest group of Afro-American homesteaders settling in Nebraska after the Civil War was a group of around 200 from Tennessee? This colony settled in Harlan County in the Republican Valley in 1889. Harsh winter conditions dampened the spirits of these southern souls and by the spring of 1890 the last of the 200 had journeyed back to Tennessee. I can't find any reference as to exactly where they settled but perhaps the homestead documents in Beatrice at the Homestead National Monument of America will have the answer in their records which are all digitized now. You can search their database for free on site or at University of Nebraska-Lincoln libraries. Kudos to Nebraska for being the first of 30 homesteading states to completely digitalize their records!

Harris L. Levy was an early Jewish settler in Nebraska. In 1869, having married a local girl, he joined a surveying party to earn some extra cash. Even though I cannot find a direct link between the Nelson Buck surveying party and Mr. Levy, in the Virtual Jewish World, a searchable online reference covering by state the history of Jewish settlers in the United States, is noted to have been massacred while working as a surveyor in retaliation by the Indians for the killing of two of their braves. It sounds as if he must have been part of the Buck group but his name doesn't appear in the articles I found. If you have Jewish roots in your family, try their website: www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. The website is free.

When searching for the nursing home that both of my father's grandmothers were in, I found this notation of the first nursing home in Beaver City which was founded by Carrie (Bessie) Taft. Carrie was a graduate nurse who worked for Dr. Shank in his Oxford Hospital until he moved his practice to McCook. In 1940, she opened a private nursing home in the old Brewster Hospital which was founded by Dr. Brewster but abandoned when he moved his practice to Holdrege. I remember visiting the great-grandmothers (Smith and Coady) and I think it was in Beaver City, but my memories will remain just that, since the original home was torn down in the late 1960s after the Beaver City Manor was built.

SWNGS library has the book, "Furnas County Past and Present," published in 1987 and compiled by the Furnas County Genealogical Society that provided me with the nursing home history. Should you have ties to Furnas County, this book can be researched at our library, 110 West C, Suite M-3, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on the first and third Saturdays of the month.