Follow Friday - The State Historical Society of Missouri

Completely side-stepping my genealogy goals, I randomly came across The State Historical Society of Missouri in the course of my research yesterday. Nancy, who blogs at My Ancestors and Me, has been posting about the Civil War pension file she recently received. I have been really enjoying these posts because I have been comparing what Nancy received in her pension file to one I recently received myself. Her joy in going through the pension file also reminded me of the fun of receiving my own. Hence, I decided to see what other pension files I could order. (See how randomly my mind works?)

I came across Thomas J. Burnett, my third great-grandfather. Another Union Soldier that applied for and received a pension. I know very little about Thomas and in reviewing my information on him I found several Civil War service files that could be his. Before spending the money on a pension file, I decided to dig a little deeper on Thomas and see if I actually needed to order the file. I determined to find his obituary and see if it mentioned a Civil War unit. But I couldn't find it anywhere online and the newspapers for Kingsville, Johnson County, Missouri have not been digitized. Cue the State Historical Society of Missouri. As part of my research list I always check state historical societies to see what newspapers they have on microfilm. The Missouri society had many of the Johnson County newspapers on microfilm so I was in business. I won't be in Columbia, Missouri any time soon to do research so I looked in to their research options. They have a great Newspaper research option and the form is incredibly easy to use.

They also have many collections online to include historic Missouri photos and digitized newspapers. The site is definitely worth a look-see for those with Missouri ancestors. I'm glad sometimes that my mind works the way it does.