Category Archives: Uncategorized

Library, Uncategorized

New Books November 2022

Call Number Date Author Title
VF Project Beauty 1967 – 1978 Project Beauty Collection
VF 010 Hein Sedgwick County Pioneer Certificate Files
R-210 LB 11 1988 Labette County Community High School Class of 1938 50th Reunion Booklet
R-040 046 V 38 2015 The Kettle
R-040 046 V 39 2016 The Kettle
R-040 046 V 40 2017 The Kettle
R-040 046 V 41 2018 The Kettle
R-040 046 V 42 2019 The Kettle
R-040 046 V 43 2020 The Kettle
R-040 046 V 44 2021 The Kettle
R-210 SG 296 1983 Cooking Classics
R-631 072 2021 2002 The Journal of Chickasaw history and culture
R-631 072 2020 2002 The Journal of Chickasaw history and culture
R-631 073 2018 F 2018 Chokma Chickasaw Magazine
R-631 073 2021 S 2021 Chokma Chickasaw Magazine
R-631 073 2021 F 2021 Chokma Chickasaw Magazine
R-631 073 2022 S 2022 Chokma Chickasaw Magazine
R-210 CL 21 2022 Bate, Seth Winfield’s Walnut Valley Festival
R-210 SG 295 2001 Belden, Dorothy Williams Wood Dorothy Williams Wood Belden: Columns of a Consummate Journalist
R-210 SG 294 2011 Cooper, Beth Wichita Haunts
Uncategorized

Library Closed March 15 – March 30

We have decided to close the library from March 15 to March 30, except by appointment.  We will monitor conditions and make a decision about reopening as we get more information.

If you need to access the library during this time, please email library@mhgswichita.org and we’ll set up an appointment to open the library for you.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Stay healthy and go label some pictures!

PowerUp SIG, Uncategorized

Power-Up SIG Notes: Useful Research vs Chasing Squirrels

How do you decide which people to research and which to ignore?  Do you follow parents of people who married into your family?  How about the siblings of your direct ancestors?  Do you try to follow all the children down to the present?

During our discussion, we established some general questions to ask ourselves to help decide whether to follow a line or not:

What is the purpose of our project?  And what is our goal for today?

  • Are we trying to join a lineage society?  If so, following siblings and others is probably a distraction.
  • Are we planning to write a book about the descendants of a particular couple?  How many generations down?  If someone falls in that set, follow them!
  • It might help to establish a file folder or Word document where you can jot down the interesting clues you find and decide not to pursue.  It will make it easier to move on if you know you can come back and pick it up later.

Have we hit a brick wall?  Perhaps we should be researching our subject’s FAN club.  Elizabeth Shown Mills named this research technique — Friends, Associates, Neighbors — others have called it cluster research.  The general idea is that very few people live in a vacuum, and other individuals in their lives may have left records you can use.  For example, if your ancestor was from Virginia, but you don’t know where in Virginia, perhaps he moved with a group of folks who are now his neighbors.  Perhaps if you researched some of them, you can find a clue about where they all moved from.  Or, if you’re trying to find the maiden name of a woman, perhaps you should look at the people who witnessed wills, administered probates, and bought and sold land with, to see if any of those people might be her parents or siblings.

Are we using DNA?  Matching up with cousins is much easier if we have a reasonably complete tree for the most recent generations, which allows us to recognize married names for our second cousins.  It also increases the chances that we’ll recognize situations where we link up with a cousin in more than one way.

Library, Uncategorized

New Items: Wichita Eagle Ledgers

When the Wichita Eagle was cleaning out its building in preparation for the big move, the staff found some old ledger books.  They looked interesting, so they offered them to us, and we eagerly accepted them.  They offer a detailed, financially-nerdy look into the operation of our local paper.

  • General ledger 1929-1947, 1948-1953, 1960.  These books show the everyday revenues and expenses for the paper.  There are pages for Marcellus and Victor’s personal expenses and pages and pages of information on what it cost to license comics, set type, engrave pictures, and supply street newsstands.
  • Assets and Equipment ledger (1955-1964.) This ledger records all the purchases, modifications, repairs, etc for the buildings, vehicles and equipment.  Here you can find out that they bought a Brown Copper Etching machine in 1944 and that they used Hoe presses to print the paper.
  • Payroll ledgers (1956-1960.) These ledgers record the payroll for the army of people who created and distributed the paper.  Want to know how many women worked for the paper?  How many people worked in the mail room?  Now you can find out!

At the moment, we have no plans to digitize these ledgers, but you are welcome to work with them here at the library.  They’re upstairs in the vertical file room.