Progress Update!!

     I thought I would update the progress of the Pre-1920 Oklahoma Death Index:

• Just finished extracting death information from Canadian County Probate Packets.
• Nearing the end of the Cherokee Dawes' Enrollment Cards. I have about 2500 more cards to go through, so should be finished by the end of September. So far I have 23,600 death references from just the Cherokee cards.
• When I finish the Cherokee cards, I will go back to the Chickasaw cards. I had stopped working on them when over 50 pages in a row were unreadable (too faint to read). They will probably take til the end of the year to finish.
• I finished the following "minor" Indian Census Rolls: Iowa, Kaw, Kickapoo, Miami, Citizen Pottawatomie, Absentee Shawnee, Sac & Fox, and just Saturday, the Cheyenne/Arapaho. I have yet to import these into the database.
• Finished volume 2 of "Oklahoma South of the Canadian". This set was published in 1925. I made a decent start into volume 3. It is surprising how many deaths are recorded in the biographical histories!

     The database is currently just short of 450,000 entries. For a few people, I now have references to a death notice, obit, funeral home record, cemetery/tombstone record, probate record, pension record, etc. This is the whole purpose: Bring together all available references to deaths in early Oklahoma in order to help people researching their family history.

     More info to come...

Indian Census Records: Unusual Names

     For the past few months, on my weekly Saturday forays to the Oklahoma History Center's Research Library, I have been reading page by page through the microfilmed Indian census records. It is interesting seeing the multi-syllable Indian names, followed by the English name translations. Censuses with both names serve as a type of Rosetta Stone for names of the tribal members for the years on either side of 1900 in what is now Oklahoma.

     One household I find quite amusing and ironic. A 78 year old male named Sweet Water was married to a 30 year old female named Old Woman.

     Another entry from the late 1880s or early 1890s had only the Indian names for each individual. However, I came across twin 18 year old boys who had been orphaned, one of whom died during the year following the census being taken. Their names were Julius Caesar and Roberson Crusoe. I assume that they were named by the superintendent of an orphan's asylum, but that's just conjecture.

     You never know what names you'll come across. But you should enjoy the irony in many of the names. You should also appreciate the ones that make you chuckle and share the reasons for your chuckles with others!

"New Computer", regained access!!

     Several months ago (in April) my laptop ceased to be compatible with the Blogspot platform, with Firefox and Expolorer, and most other applications. With my daughter going over seas to study for the next year, she received a new computer and I received her old computer. Now that I have become semi-proficient with Windows 7 (after using a Mac since 1982) I have regained access to Blogspot.

     So...I should be posting at least once each week. My "plans" are to post each Wednesday and Saturday, so twice each week. I have come across some interesting records, as well as some funny and ironic records. I'll post about those as well as availability and location of various sources that contain/include deaths of Oklahomans who died before the year 1920.

     I have been asked lately why I don't record obits in Oklahoma papers for people who died out of state. I only include them if the formerly lived in Oklahoma or if they ended being buried in Oklahoma. Since my index as an Oklahoma Death Index, I choose not to enter deaths of those who died out of state and whose only connection to Oklahoma was having relatives in Oklahoma.

     That may seem inappropriate or arbitrary to some, but I had to choose some parameters for my database. They are as arbitrary as choosing 31 Dec 1919 as my cut-off date. But, as my dad who was a geologist would say when showing his maps during the decision making process in drilling wells, "That's my story and I'm sticking by it!"

NEW UPDATE: 446,493 Entries

     Since my last post, I have been extracting information from many different sources. I am about a month away from finishing the Cherokee Dawes' Roll Enrollment Cards, half way through Canadian County probate packets, working through "minor" tribes (non-5 Civilized) census records, and various online and in library books/manuscripts.

     The grand total of records in my database is now 446,493 entries! I should hit the 450,000 entries mark by the end of August. Extracting will fall off in the Fall during football season as I work OSU football games and will lose my wonderful Saturday research time at the Oklahoma Historical Society Research Library and Indian Archives.

     More to come....

Progress Update

The Pre-1920 Oklahoma Death Index is now at 424,116 entries.

• Just finished extracting death information from Blaine County probate records, about 850 entries in all.

• Working through the Dawes Enrollment Cards for Cherokees. It will probably take most of this year to finish all the Cherokee cards. I'm including those with death dates AND the deaths of parents and spouses listed as dead (their death listed as pre1900-08, for example).

* About half way through deaths recorded at the Sequoyah County Court House. These were periodically recorded by doctors and cover time period of about 1908 to 1917.

• Finished reading through the Beaver Herald, 1895 through end of 1919.

• Started reading through the Langston City Herald (up to Feb 1896).


My computer is a several years old Mac laptop. Apparently the operating system is not compatible with any of the current browsers, so I lose ability to post on this blog most of the time. Soon, I will inherit my daughters 2 year old PC laptop, so should be back to normal abilities and displays. Hopefully I will be able to get back to weekly postings! Until then...Good Hunting!

Oklahoma Probate Records Now On-Line!!!

     Familysearch.org has now scanned and made available on-line early probate records for most of Oklahoma. The amount and types of probate records vary by county depending on what records the LDS Church microfilm crews were allowed to film. Several counties have indexes included in scanned files!

     When looking for death dates, don't limit your searches to just estate and will files. I have found death dates of parents in guardianship files. A death date can also be roughly determined from the Appearance Docket (death before the filing date, but close to that filing date).

     Nearly all counties have SOME scanned files. So below are those counties for which NO files are accessible:

Coal              Grady           Love              Sequoyah
Craig             Johnston       Murray
Creek           Kiowa          Osage
Garfield         Lincoln         Pawnee

     There is also one county that no longer exists that had files: Day County. This county covered all or parts of Ellis, Roger Mills and Dewey counties before statehood.

To access these files go to Family Search at this URL:

https://familysearch.org/search/image/index#uri=https%3A//familysearch.org/records/collection/2063710/waypoints

Oklahoma City Death Record Books

     Several years ago two volumes of OKC death records were donated to the Oklahoma History Center. The OHS has finally ironed out the problems with digitizing the oversized volumes and have put the two volumes covering 1908 through 1924 onto a single CD. Work is in progress to extract information into a searchable database with basic information from the two volumes.

     The information in records is amazing. Included are:
• Name
• Death location
• Gender and race
• Birth date and/or age (usually age)
• Marital status
• Birth place (usually just the state)
• Names of parents and their birth places (states)
• Occupation (usually left blank)
• Death date
• Cause of death
• Contributing cause of death
• Place of burial (cemetery if local, city if elsewhere)
• Funeral Home
• Date record was filed
• Comments column (usually for homicide, auto death, suicide, or WWI service info)

    As you can see, there is a wealth of information in these death volumes. I have extracted information for the 11,638 deaths that occurred before 1920. These records will soon be incorporated into my Pre-1920 Oklahoma Death Index.

     Suprisingly, 40 records were recorded after 1 Jan 1920! Most of these were WWI reburials (disinterred in France for burial in OKC) or disinterments from elsewhere to Fairlawn Cemetery or Rose Hill Cemetery in OKC. Even though entries start on 17 Feb 1908, there are 12 deaths recorded for people who died before 1908. The earliest recorded death is for L.C. Hubbell aged 17y who died 14 June 1893 at Monroe City LA and was disinterred to Fairlawn Cemetery in May 1921.

     Keep a look out for these records to be available at the OHS in the not too distant future. Also, for the time being I am doing free look ups from my Pre-1920 Oklahoma Death Index which now has over 410,000 entries.