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Underutilized State Archives

August 14, 2026

This week I took a tour of the Wyoming State Archives. As the archivist explained many of the documents and records that the archives hold, I was reminded how much I enjoy research at state archives. They hold a wealth of information that is frequently underutilized.

 

If you aren’t using state archives, now is a good time to begin. Every state has a state archive and/or a state library. Most of them are in the state’s capitol city, although some states, such as Illinois, have regional archives rather than one central facility.

 

If a trip to a far-flung archive isn’t possible, they all have websites. Many of the websites feature databases containing documents such as death and marriage certificates that you can access from home. Others allow you to order various records for a modest fee (sometimes even for free). Some will even do limited research on request.

 

When it’s possible, it’s worthwhile to visit an archive in person. Before you go, call or write and specify which records you want to view. Many state archives are housed in small facilities, and the bulk of their records are kept in off-site storage. If you’re only in town for one day, you don’t want to spend your time waiting for records to be delivered.

 

Because archives tend to be underutilized, I’ve often been among a handful of patrons using the facility when I visited. Maybe because of this or maybe just because archivists are naturally nice, I’ve always found that getting help at archives is easy. Whether you’re calling or visiting in person, be sure to ask for additional hints for further research. They know their records better than you do. Take advantage of their expertise. Just remember that the archivists may have other tasks to do. Try to be concise when you’re describing what you want.

 

Before you visit or call an archive, be sure to check the online catalog to see whether the archive holds the records you need. Archives were created to preserve state records. This means that governors’ files and records, legislative minutes and various state departments’ records are a large part of the holdings. These types of records may be of genealogical interest if your ancestors were prominent in state politics.

 

For those of us with less prominent ancestors, archives also are the repository where counties send their records. These include birth and death records, marriage records, probate records and land records. Also included are court records, which means divorce cases and criminal and civil cases. Typically, counties retain their most recent records and send older records to the state archives.

 

Finally, state archives sometimes collect and preserve personal papers and photographs. Most archives also have newspapers from throughout their state on microfilm. Maps, directories and even school yearbooks may be archived as well.

 

With so much to offer, it’s strange that state archives remain underutilized. If you have a chance to visit one, be sure to. You’ll be glad you did.

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society

 

 

 

 

Online or Not

August 7, 2026

Many genealogists assume that everything they need to complete a family history project is now available online. It is true that an amazing amount of information is online. That doesn’t, however, mean that everything is available there.

 

In the summer of 1945, my in-laws were living in Denver. My father-in-law had been serving as a flight surgeon in Europe since 1942. At the end of the European war, he was sent to Colorado to prepare for deployment to the Pacific. My mother-in-law and their young child joined him. Instead, World War II ended that summer, and my father-in-law was discharged from the Army that fall.

 

While the family was in Colorado, they purchased a couple of pastels by an artist named Elsie Haddon Haynes. The pictures were landscapes of Colorado mountain scenes. To my New Jersey in-laws the pictures represented a happy time in their youth. It was an interlude between the terrors of the war and their life in New Jersey. At the end of the summer, my in-laws returned to New Jersey.

 

The Colorado landscapes followed them. They were displayed prominently in every house my in-laws lived in. Eventually, since my husband and I live in Colorado, they came to us. Over the years, I’ve wondered about the artist who made them. She was a prolific pastel artist whose drawings were primarily of high-country Colorado.

 

This week I decided to see what I could find out about her. Since she was an artist, I started by googling Elsie H. Haynes (the name signed on the pictures). I quickly found a gallery bio. Elsie Haddon Rose was born in England in 1881. She died in 1963 in Colorado. She had been a WWI war bride and came to the U.S. in 1919.

 

From there, I used Ancestry and Family Search to check English and U.S. censuses covering her life. I found her in English censuses from 1891 until 1911 and in U.S. censuses starting in 1920 through 1950.

 

Online family trees on Ancestry and Family Search provided me with information about Elsie’s parents. Both of her parents were from prominent families. Elsie’s father was a well-known professor of Naval History at Cambridge. Her mother’s brother was also a professor at Cambridge. He was an anthropologist who studied in New Guinea and elsewhere. Both wrote books which are still in print.

 

Elsie’s other uncle, Trevor Haddon, was a prominent Victorian painter whose works are still collectable. One of his paintings recently sold for nearly $40,000.

 

Ancestry provided me with several copies of original documents concerning Elsie’s WWI service. She joined the women’s military and worked at a rest and recreation center in France from 1916 through 1919. While there, she met an American soldier, who she married in 1919. Documents relating to their marriage and her immigration to America are online.

 

Once she arrived in Colorado, documents about Elsie are sparse. However, she was an active artist from the 1920s until her death in the 1960s. Using Newspapers.com, I found many articles detailing Elsie’s presence at local art exhibits throughout Colorado.

 

I learned a lot about Elsie, but I could have gone further. I found hints of offline records that would be interesting to access. I found an index to English wills which listed wills for both of Elsie’s parents. The wills themselves are not online, but they can be ordered using the information from the index.

 

If I were related to Elsie, I’m sure that there are voluminous records at Cambridge concerning Elsie’s professor father and uncle. I imagine that there are also books and other sources of information about her artist uncle, as well.

 

Elsie is a known Colorado artist, and there is a collection of her work at the Special Collections section of the Denver Public Library. The Denver Art Museum also holds some of her drawings. If Elsie were my ancestor, I would visit these repositories.

 

I learned a lot about Elsie H. Haynes this week, but if I were serious about studying her, there are several offline sources that I’d pursue. I think this is the case for most of our ancestors. There is a good deal of information online, but there is still more to be found offline. Everything is not online.

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society

 

 

 

 

Researching the Women in your Family

July 31, 2026

As most genealogists know, researching female ancestors is difficult. We often feel we’ve done well if we identify birth, marriage and death dates for women. That’s too bad because the women in your family tree are just as important and interesting as the men.

 

On my own family tree, I’ve found many memorable women. I’ve found an ancestor who was executed during the Salem witch trials. Another great grandmother came to America on her own to work as a servant at the young age of seventeen. My mother’s cousin was an independent woman in New York City who wrote a monthly column for Cosmopolitan magazine during the swinging 60s. Other women in my line divorced abusive husbands when that was difficult to do. They were able to make lives for themselves and their children despite the stigma of divorce.

 

Of course, most of the women in my family led more typical lives. They were wives and mothers who left few traces of their lives. The problem is learning about these women. In earlier eras, men featured in most official records such as deeds, probates and business records. Even obituaries were more often written for men than for women. One valuable record set that does include women is the U.S. census.

 

Starting in 1850, the U.S. census listed every person by name. This includes women and girls. It’s possible to trace a woman’s life using these ten-year snapshots. You may get clues as to when she married and when she began having children. The 1900 and 1910 census explicitly asked how many children a woman had given birth to and how many were still living. Learning that an ancestor had given birth to ten children and that only four were still living opens a window into a life of tragedy that most of us can only imagine.

 

The censuses are also a good way to learn whether a woman held jobs outside the household. One of my great grandfather’s sisters was listed as a photographer in 1880, an unusual occupation for a woman at that time. This snippet inspired further research to learn more about my great grandfather’s family.

 

Because of the lack of specific records for women, it’s often necessary to learn about women’s lives more generally. I have found social history to be a good starting point. For example, if you have early New England ancestors, you may be interested in learning more about the women of that era. Laurel Taylor Ulrich’s book A Midwife’s Tale is based on the diaries of Martha Ballard who was a midwife in the late 1700s in Maine. The book describes medical, social and domestic life of the period.

 

There are numerous YouTube videos to help you use social history to research female relatives. One that I found helpful is called “Finding Your Female Ancestors: Research Tips that Actually Work” by Lisa Lisson. You can google “finding female ancestors” and find dozens of other videos and articles that may be helpful.

 

Although it may take more effort to research women, it’s worthwhile. Remember that ignoring the female members of your family is ignoring half of your genealogy.

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society