FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  Jan. 10, 2007
CONTACT:  Chelle Somsen, (605) 773-5521, Chelle.Somsen@state.sd.us

Historical records available on the Web

PIERRE, S.D. -- The South Dakota State Historical Society has recently added some new resources to its archives Web site.

A guide to the military records held at the State Archives was added to the Web site, along with indexes to the vertical and biographical files collections, the Sanborn and Fire Underwriters Insurance Maps, and “Wi-Iyohi,” a former State Historical Society publication, noted Chelle Somsen, state archivist.

The vertical file collection contains miscellaneous information arranged by topic, while the biographical file contains information on individual citizens.

The “County Guides” page saw the addition of Clark and Campbell counties. These pages contain indexes to the records that are held for each county, including photographs, publications and government records. The “Dates of South Dakota Towns” Web page lists towns alphabetically with the date when a post office was officially established by the federal government in a town. Other information may include a town’s incorporation, establishment, founding, platting, named and/or settling dates.  

“The newspaper vital records index was a new addition to the site at the beginning of the year, but is worth mentioning again because of the number of records that are available for searching,” said Somsen.

The index is searchable by name and contains the titles of newspapers and dates of events for marriages, deaths and other significant events for South Dakota newspapers for the years 2001-2006. Currently, the index contains 356,295 entries, with more being added monthly.

The Web pages have proven to be very popular with genealogists, researchers, attorneys, students and teachers, Somsen said. In addition to the new additions and newspaper index, other popular pages are the naturalization indexes, the guide to American Indian research and the index to the Governors’ Papers. The Web site is located at www.sdhistory.org/arc/archives.htm.

Making more resources accessible on the archives Web site helps the State Historical Society reach the 2010 Initiative goal of advancing history as essential to lifelong learning, Somsen added.

The South Dakota State Historical Society is located in the Cultural Heritage Center, and the archives is open Monday through Friday and the first Saturday of each month from 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. The research facility is open to the public and has several microfilm readers and computer terminals to aid researchers.