California Genealogical Society blog: CGS Library Collections: Kansas

One in a series by CGS member Chris Pattillo, highlighting some of our holdings at the Library in Oakland. For a fuller listing of our books, journals, and more, consult the CGS Library catalog. Our catalog is also included in WorldCat.

Nicely illustrated cover of History of Kansas

Our Kansas books are contained on the equivalent of one shelf. The section starts and ends with sets of genealogical journals. The first is The Tree Searcher published by the Kansas Genealogical Society, covering the period 1995 to 2010. The second is Topeka Genealogical Society Quarterly, 1988 to 2002. I suspect the time period correlates with the time frame when the donor was actively engaged in researching their family history.

3 volumes of Kansas Historical Collections

We have three volumes (Numbers 10, 11, and 12) of the Kansas Historical Collections, a long-running journal published by the Kansas State Historical Society. These volumes cover the years 1907 to 1912 and were donated by Mrs. Mary Langford Taylor Horn. In them you can find myriad sketches of early Kansas pioneers and historical tidbits. Among them are a fold-out map in the section “Our Earliest Knowledge of Kansas,” words to the "Song of Kansas" by Joseph Stewart, two poems–"The American Flag" by J.W Ozias and "The Pawnee Republic" by A.B. Warner--and a section titled “A Woman’s Greeting” by "Mrs. Gov. E.W. Hoch"--presumably Sarah Louis Dickerson, the wife of Kansas Governor Edward Hoch.

Medicine Lodge: The Story of a Kansas Frontier Town by Nellie Snyder Yost was published in 1970. Its table of contents offers enticing chapter titles including "Legend of Flower Pot Mountain," "Frontier Violence," "Grand Hotel Flood," "The Murder of Sheriff McCracken," "Cyclones," and more. The book includes a number of illustrations and photos.

Medicine Lodge by Nellie Snyder Yost

Who’s Who in Topeka, written by Howard D. Berrett, was published in 1905. The first line of the preface warns the reader:

Don’t expect too much from the title of this book. It is not meant to imply that herein is an array of men each with his pockets bulging with money and a long string of degrees attached to his name; rather, the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, who have been or who are now so connected with the interests of Topeka, that they are well known or worthy of mention.

Which is to say – you might find one of your ancestors' stories in this book.

Our Kansas books also include a small assortment of cemetery and marriage records and the 1855 Territorial Census.