Genealogists who have family connections to Oklahoma will want to check out the new resources that have been put online through Oklahoma’s official Travel and Tourism website. You can link to a specific county, see detailed maps, and even trace your Cherokee Roots.
Genealogy has become a popular hobby. Many states have started encouraging genealogists to plan a trip to visit their state so that the genealogist can physically walk through places that their ancestors might have walked through several generations ago. I guess you could call this sort of thing “genealogy tourism”.
One way to generate interest in genealogy travel is to put together a website that gives genealogists and family historians access to resources that come from the archives of a particular state. The State of Oklahoma has done an excellent job of giving genealogists whose family tree’s extend through this state the resources they need in order to continue their genealogy research.
There is an interactive map on the website that has been divided into the individual counties in Oklahoma. Click on any of them, and you will be brought to a page that has tons of information about that county, including links to maps, cemeteries, newspaper archives, and Tribal Nations within that particular county.
It lists the address and phone number of the county courthouse, and the types of records that one can find there. You can also find addresses and phone numbers of local libraries. This type of information can help genealogists to track down the records and documents that they are trying to find.
The Oklahoma Genealogy Resources website also will connect you to the libraries that have copies of the Dawes Rolls. In 1887, the United States Congress required Native Americans to sign the Dawes Rolls in order to be granted an allotment of land. Oklahoma is home to 39 federally recognized Indian tribes. The names listed on the Dawes Rolls could help genealogists fill in parts of their family tree.
Other resources include a link that will guide genealogists through how to trace their Cherokee Roots. This was recently added to the website on August 25, 2011. Genealogists who have ancestors who were involved in the Civil War may want to check out the link that will show you “Civil War Points of Interest in Oklahoma”. There also is a full color map of Oklahoma that shows how the land was divided up.
Image by Eric M Martin on Flickr