Highlights Archives
Genealogy — Unearthing Your Family's Roots
While unseasonably warm April weather sent many people out to the garden to poke around among emerging seedlings, others were investigating roots of a different kind. The Milwaukee County Genealogical Society held its 14th biennial workshop on Saturday, April 23, including a session on using the genealogical resources right here on the Wisconsin Historical Society's Web site. At the same time, leaders of the Wisconsin State Genealogical Society were enthusiastically working on the final arrangements for their annual; Gene-A-Rama to be held in La Crosse the weekend of April 29-30.
If you've often meant to look into your family history but haven't quite found the time, you'll find lots of sources and good advice right here. Our genealogy home page offers an overview of the main topics in Wisconsin genealogy, including a very useful Beginning Your Family History page. If you just want to dip your toe into family history, try entering your surname in the Wisconsin Name Index, which cites more than 150,000 biographical sketches and obituaries of Wisconsin residents. Another fun way to browse is to search for surnames or the names of towns in our online collection of Wisconsin Local History & Biography Articles, where you'll find more than 50,000 pages of newspaper and magazine articles available for free.
To learn about the events and conditions that your ancestors faced, explore the documents and essays at Turning Points in Wisconsin History, our new online collection of eyewitness accounts from Wisconsin's past. At Turning Points you can browse by time periods and subjects, or you can search for documents about particular people and places. To learn more about pivotal events that your ancestors experienced, click on any item on our Wisconsin History Topics page, where you'll find the basic facts about Wisconsin's part in the Civil War, the rise of dairy farming, Black migration to Wisconsin in the 20th century, and dozens of other events. Perhaps the most enjoyable way to get a sense of your ancestors' lives is to visit Wisconsin Historical Images and search or browse among its 13,000 photographs and other images. Later this year we will add a massive and valuable tool to our genealogical repertoire when we mount the index to pre-1907 Wisconsin birth, marriage and death records. This index will lead to the vital records on more than 2 million Wisconsin ancestors. It will be fully searchable on the Web, and users will be able to order paper copies of the actual records online just as they do in the Wisconsin Name Index. If you would like to be sure to learn about this as soon as its ready, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
:: Posted April 25, 2005
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