Progress Update

     Today I added 1833 new entries bringing the total in my Pre-1900 Oklahoma Death Index database to 458,295. My goal for 2013 was to have 500,000 entries in the database, however, it looks like I will only reach the 470,000 mark. I have exhausted the "easy" sources (indexes) and am now slogging my way page by page through sources that require more intense study.

     Sources consulted for the 1833 entries added today were:

• The Daily Ardmoreite (May and June 1905)
• The Inola Register (5 Oct 1906 through 29 Mar 1907)
• Carter County Probate Packets (1906 through 1909)
• Cimarron County Probate Case Files (1907 through 1922, finished)
• Harper County Probate Case Files (1907 through 1913)
• Texas County Probate Case Files (1915 through 1922, finished)
• Oak Hill Cemetery & Mount Calvary Cemetery in McAlester by PCGS
• Pioneers of the Chickasaw Nation IT published in 1991 (vol 1 through p257)

     For probate records I have been consulting those that are available on FamilySearch. I am concentrating on those counties that do not have any scanned probate indexes. Earlier this year I went through the scanned index books, so am now concentrating on counties that did not have any scanned index volumes. Since I have spent so much time and effort on records from Indian Territory the past two years, I decided to start my way in far west Oklahoma and work my way east. So the Panhandle counties of Cimarron, Texas and Beaver are finished and Harper County is nearly half way completed.

     Continuing projects include:

• Dawes' Roll Enrollment Cards: working on Chickasaw; have completed Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole.
• Minor Tribes Census Rolls: currently working on the Kiowa Agency Rolls. These include censuses for the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache and Wichita tribes. So far I have over 500 deaths from the 1879, 1881, 1881-1883, and 1883 censuses.

     The work is "slow going" these days what with reading each page of the sources looking for death information. And I am a "one man show". That is by design. However, the database is now big enough that I have been able to help quite a few people find references to the deaths of people they are searching for.

     Another update in about two weeks!