Research Opportunities
While in Madison, leave plenty of time for research at the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS). National in scope, it includes records of people who lived or passed through Wisconsin—including Native Americans, French-Canadians, Northern Europeans, African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics. Its collection of newspapers, journals, magazines, and union and guild publications from around the country is only surpassed by the Library of Congress.
WHS is also home to the Draper Manuscripts Collection. Spanning 491 volumes, it concentrates on events from 1775 to 1815 that impacted those who lived and traveled across the trans-Allegheny West, an area including the Ohio River valley and Virginia, parts of Alabama, the Carolinas, and Georgia as well as portions of the Mississippi River valley. Other collections include records that cover the rise and diminution of miners, loggers, and railroad workers, and once held Confederate prisoners of war during the Civil War.
In all, the WHS houses more than four million records and serves as the Wisconsin State Archives for state, county, and local government records. Land deeds, naturalization records, tax rolls, and court documents are just some of the original records that genealogists can access at the archives.
Family historians with ancestors from Germany will be especially interested in visiting the Max Kade Institute. It has a robust collection of German-American newspapers, letters, diaries, and church and business records. The Institute is also an excellent resource for locating historic German-language, European towns and villages.
Genealogists with ancestors from Norway will want to check out the Norwegian American Genealogical Center & Naeseth Library. Its resources include emigration lists, Norwegian farm histories and topographical maps, printed histories, and files with information on obituaries, wedding and birth announcements, feature stories, and other events.