McLEAN COUNTY HISTORY & GENEALOGY NEWS
By Euleen Rickard
In 1976 Alex Haley’s book “Roots” tracing his ancestry back to Africa and covering seven American generations, hit the market sparking a new interest in genealogy. In 1965 Haley found the names of his maternal great-grandparents while going through post-Civil War records in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. This led to eleven years of family research, including oral history and tradition before the book was completed.
Today a growing number of people around the world want to know who and what kind of people their ancestors were. They want to know their names, how and where they lived and when they lived. They want to know why they embarked on journeys to unknown places and how they endured the pain and suffering of some of those journeys. One recent press release stated that “60% of Americans were somewhat interested” in their family history. The number has increased from 45% in 1995. The Internet is probably the reason for the growth in popularity of genealogical research.
Thanks to Kathryn Young and Gregory Eck, the McLean County History and Genealogy Museum has been linked to the McLeanKyGenWeb.org site. This site is part of a national Internet project called USGenWeb. According to Gregory Eck “The idea of the project is to find a volunteer to do a web site oriented to amateur genealogy research for every county in the US. The purpose of the county sites is to allow those doing their own family history research to use the Internet to contact each other and share research and resources.” We are pleased to be a part of this project. We also have a link to the Webster County Historical Society site. Our web site is currently being upgraded.
Contacts from the web sites include Harold Morgan of Mount Vernon, Indiana who has advised that he is nearing completion of a genealogy book that will be titled “10,000 McLean County Kentucky Marriages”, dating from July 6, 1854 to about 1970. He is asking for early wedding pictures. If you have any that you would let him include in his book, contact him at hmorgan@evansville.net His book will be published by McDowell Publications. His ancestral McLean County families are Crow, Ford, Harris, Owen and Wells.
Phyllis L. Hicks of Newburg, Indiana found us through Webster County genealogy site that Carol Palmer keeps updated. She emailed that she thought her mother was born in McLean County and lived here before moving to Sebree in Webster County. Her mother was Clara Jean Simpson who married Warren Lee Oakley in 1907. Her grandmother was Sarah Elizabeth Riggs who married John Critser. She plans to visit the museum and go to the Riggs cemetery.
Gary Crowningshield of Mendocino, California emailed that he was seeking information on his great-grandparents William A. Wright and Mollie Baldwin, married in McLean County on April 27, 1893, children Amos and Mary. Virginia Davis sent the marriage records to him.
Pamela Daniell of Jonesboro, Georgia emailed that she was born in Calhoun and was interested in our historical endeavors and will try to visit our museum when she comes back to the county. Her grandparents were Roy and Gertrude Wetzel and they were in business in McLean County.
Rebecca (last name unknown) emailed the following question: Do any genealogy records exist for Irish immigrants who worked on the railroad around Livermore in the late 1800s and where might I find them? If you have the answer to her question, please email her at gary@genesisnetwork.net or email or write to the museum.
There are many ways to share research and resources and giving someone names dates, pictures or history to fill a long sought part of their lineage brings joy to most amateur genealogists.