Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Visiting the Beaver Dam (Wis.) Community Library - Post 437 of (Not So) Wordless Wednesday

During our 2011 vacation to Springfield, Illinois and surrounding states, we had one day in Dodge County, Wisconsin  my Ranslow and Devier Smith home area.  I wrote about it in Day 10 on the Seaver Midwest Genealogy Tour (posted 15 September 2011).

Here are more of the photographs I took during our visit:


1)  I had information from a book that there were newspaper articles about my Ranslow Smith family that were in the Dodge County, Wisconsin newspapers, and I had a list of the dates I wanted to see.  Here is the entrance to the Beaver Dam (Wisconsin) Community Library: 



2)  The library had a very well organized bookcase with family history materials:



The shelves in the photo above are labeled as "Beaver Dam and Dodge County Newspaper Indexes," "Dodge County Cemetery Indexes," "Dodge County Plat Maps and Indexes," and "Beaver Dam Telephone Books."

3)  The shelves next to the shelves above were reserved for local historians, and had some of the best resource books:



I was mainly interested in the "Dodge County Citizen Newspaper Index, 1856-1914" on the counter above.

4)  I searched that index book for my Devier and Ranslow Smith:



Unfortunately, these indexes had only vital events plus some probate record events in the index.  

5)  When I came into the library and asked for the genealogy section, a newspaper reporter asked me where I was from and what I was researching, so I told her.  She insisted on taking my picture with the librarian, Anita Streich:



6)  After I got home, the librarian sent the article from the Beaver Dam Daily Citizen newspaper dated 29 September 2011:



This was a pretty successful research visit.  I was able to find some of the articles mentioned in the book I had about my 3rd great-grandfather, Ranslow smith, and his family in the early years of the paper.

When I was leaving, I asked if there was a local historical society in town and Anita gave me directions and a name to the Beaver Dam Historical Society.  I will report on that visit next week.


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Copyright (c) 2016, Randall J. Seaver

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1 comment:

Charlene M Filipiak said...

What a pleasant surprise to come across your post about the town that I was born in. Even though my family moved to a neighboring town, Fond du Lac when I was two years old, I have many extended relatives who still live there. In fact much of my beginning genealogy research was done at the Beaver Dam library. One of the great things about this library are their Sunday hours and while most other libraries were closed, this one allowed me to get research done on Sunday since I worked a full-time job. This also allowed me to research at other libraries on Saturdays. The newspaper index you talked about helped me very much in my early days of research along with their gravestone index found in the card catalog in the days prior to the Internet and Find A grave. I was able to located quickly the cemeteries that contain possible family and ask my parents if they recognize the names. The Historical society is located in the building that use to be the city library. I always marveled at the the beautiful architecture of the old library. I look forward to post about the historical society since I have never entered the building.