In August of last
year my daughter went to France for a year’s study abroad. We bought her a new
laptop and I inherited her “old” laptop (5 years old). Before then, my laptop
was a Mac that was about 8 years old. So with a “new” computer, I set aside my
Mac and started using my daughter’s old PC. Unfortunately, the PC died earlier
this year (in early June). So I have gone back to my old Mac. Unfortunately,
the operating system is not supported by many web sites and web browsers, nor
is it upgradable. But I continue using it for lack of another computer to use
at home.
As Murphy would
have it, on my old Mac I cannot access my blog for updates. So I am now using
my work computer. The next several posts will be updates of the progress I have
made in accessing and abstracting records of deaths in Oklahoma prior to 1920.
Oklahoma probate
records are available on FamilySearch for all but 14 counties in Oklahoma. For
the past two years I have been going county by county through those records.
This is very time consuming and slow, but very beneficial in the information
encountered. So far I have finished 26 counties:
Adair Custer Okfuskee
Beaver Dewey Okmulgee
Beckham Ellis Roger Mills
Blaine Harmon Rogers
Canadian Harper Texas
Carter Haskell Wagoner
Cherokee Major Washington
Cimarron Mayes Washita
Cotton McIntosh
Currently I am working on
Tillman and Woodward Counties. Since I cannot access FamilySearch at home, I am
extracting info for an hour before work, a half hour during lunch, and a half
hour after work, each day. I can finish one county a month in this fashion. As
I said, slow going, but lots of good info. Occasionally I check entries against
findagrave and okcemeteries.net and notice that about 15% of extracted probate
entries are for people who have no tombstones marking their graves.
Next report: Newspapers: Death Notices and Obits.
