We’ve probably all picked up a few new hobbies thanks to the pandemic: from things we’ve always wanted to try but never had the time for, to those crazy boredom inspired ideas, to the regretted give-in to peer pressure fads (bread-making was NOT a success for my family!). But few of us were able to knock out over 971 pages of self-published historical work based on government records.
Ruby Coleman of North Platte, Nebraska did.
Her ambitious project was her latest historical work: a study of the early homesteaders of Lincoln County, Nebraska. Homesteaders were the folks who took advantage of the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted the claimant 160 acres of land. All claimants had to do was file the application, improve the land, and then file for the deed. This process was open to any citizen who had never taken up arms against the country and who was either the Head of Household or at least 21 years old. It is considered one of the important pieces of legislation under President Lincoln.
Coleman gathered much of her information through online resources in order to limit her exposure during the pandemic. One of the most credited people to assist her was Lincoln County’s register of deeds, who not only e-mailed the information but was instrumental in gathering land records.
The project isn’t just a report on the Homestead act itself either. The bulk of her work is research on the over 1400 people who “proved up” to receive federal deeds in Lincoln County between 1874 and 1899. Since proving up – the act of improving the land claimed – usually took a period of five years and required completed land surveys, it took 12 years after the act to see completed deeds in Nebraska. These deeds are what a lot of the research was based on. Once Coleman knew who filed for and received deeds, she could pursue other avenues to gain more information on who these people were and momentous events in their histories. From feuds to some of the first Black homesteaders in the area, there are many exciting stories within Coleman’s work.
You can find Coleman’s work on Amazon. And considering the work Coleman and her associates did with government records like land records, think about how much easier such research would be with Extract’s indexing software. We are experienced in classifying and indexing many types of documents to better understand what they contain and where they are located. Imagine how much simpler such a project becomes for writers (much less your friendly neighborhood register of deeds!) when such solutions are in place. We offer many solutions, from day-forward documents for more optimized workflows to back-file projects for getting your records modernized and digital.
About the Author: Cody Auter
Cody is a Project Manager and Customer Support Specialist at Extract with over 8 years’ experience as a Project Manager in a variety of industries. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Project Management from UW-Stout. Cody loves tackling challenges in order to improve his customer’s processes and workflows.