Indiana Resources and Events

Back from a trip, and a lot of genealogy has been happening "back home in Indiana":

* The September issue of Indiana Genealogist is out! This may be the only state quarterly published exclusively online, available to Indiana Genealogical Society members. The color image potential of the web is being used well. More than half the issue is devoted to David C. Bailey Sr.'s intriguing listing of Indiana Civil War veterans who were members of California posts of the Grand Army of the Republic organization in 1886, based in part on a published source. Clearly there's still room for those with Indiana relatives to write their family histories for publication.

* The Indiana Historical Society has unveiled its collection of 495 documents totaling 3910 pages in its digital "Civil War Military Front" collection (scroll down to 5th item). The collection uses CONTENTdm, not a very user-friendly interface in my experience, but I was able to access seven soldiers' diaries without much trouble using the advanced-search feature. They are James M. Witt (39th Indiana Infantry), Lancelot C. Ewbank (31st Infantry), Andrew Jackson Smith (2nd Cavalry), Albert S. Underwood (9th Light Artillery), James F. Elliott (8th Infantry), David H. Reynolds (43rd Infantry), and Alva C. Griest (72nd Infantry).

* IHS has also published M. Teresa Baer's Indianapolis: A City of Immigrants. An earlier publication, Herman B. Wells: The Promise of the American University by James H. Capshew, got a quizzical review at History News Network, which got me thinking about how a certain kind of Midwesterner just likes to be nice . . . and opaque.

* The September Indiana Magazine of History has features on black women workers in WW2 jobs, and concrete houses in Gary a century ago, and a review of Murder in Their Hearts: The Fall Creek Massacre, that makes me think I'd better read about the 1825 Madison County case where three white men were -- unusually for the times -- hanged for premeditated murder of nine friendly Indians (two men, three women, and four children).

* On a lighter note, the Summer 2012 issue of Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History (also from IHS -- do these people sleep?) includes an article about old-time cartoonist Bill Holman and his "screwball comic strip Smokey Stover." New to me was the claim that Crawfordsville (Montgomery County) and Nappanee (Elkhart County) were especially productive of 20th-century comic-strip authors. Holman was born near Crawfordsville and reared in Nappanee, so there you are.

* Upcoming: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center has daily events in honor of Family History Month during October. Also, Geneabloggers get together there October 13. (I've been trying for 13 years and I still haven't used that library up.)


Harold Henderson, "Indiana Resources and Events," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 25 September 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]