Looking for Cemetery enthusiasts! This month’s History Mystery is focused on unraveling the mysterious location of the Pruett-Mardis Cemetery in Kenton County. Or is it the Mardis Cemetery in Kenton County? Or better yet: Where exactly is Jacob Mardis (1815-1855) buried? Find-A-Grave lists Jacob as buried in the Pruett –...
Sustainable Genealogy: Separating Fact From Fiction in Family Legends. By Richard Hite. (2013. Pp. 126. $18.95. Softcover. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 3600 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 260, Baltimore MD 21211-1953. www.genealogical.com) ISBN: 978-0-8063-1982-7. Richard Hite has penned a dense treatise on the pitfalls and obstacles we hit when relying...
The early Kentucky landscape was often painted as a wild frontier, full of colorful characters that had enough eccentricity and determination to successfully settle this new land. While record keeping might have taken a back seat, or even been overlooked as a necessity in this “wilderness”, the ultimate goal of...
Slaves Identified in Kenton County, Kentucky Clerk’s and Kenton County Vital Statistic Records, 1840-1865. By Arnold Taylor. (2014. Pp. 58. Spiral Softcover. Lexington: www.slavelawsuits.com) This new title by Arnold Taylor was recently accepted into the library holdings here at KHS. As a transcribed collection of enslaved individuals listed in Kenton...
Get ready geography enthusiasts! This History Mystery is for you! The KHS staff has been hard at work adding some of the 11,000 postcards from the Ronald Morgan Postcard collection to our Digital Collections Catalog. We recently stumbled across this image of the Kentwood Bank, located in Kentwood, KY. The image,...
Thank You, Kentucky Genealogical Society (KGS)! The Kentucky Genealogical Society recently gave a donation of $1500 to the KHS Martin F. Schmidt Research Library for the purchase of library books, particularly focusing on county publications. With budget cuts in recent years, the library’s acquisitions have mainly been donations of books and...
For the first time in 20 years, the state of Kentucky will once again play host to the Taylor Family Reunion, September 5-6 in Richardsville and Bowling Green. The family lineage behind this event is long and well documented throughout the United States and beyond. For anyone with Taylor family...
Ohio Photographers 1839-1900. By Diane VanSkiver Gagel. (2013. Pp. 371. $42.75. Paperback. Baltimore: Clearfield Company for Genealogical Publishing Company. ISBN: 978-0-8063-5669-3.) www.genealogical.com Statewide resources on early photography are few and far between. A brief check of OCLC’s WorldCat shows just six states with statewide directories, a clue to how difficult...
For this month’s History Mystery, we have something a little different: a painting from our portrait collection! KHS needs your help in identifying this painting of a woman, who is wearing in a high-necked black dress, and a jeweled cross brooch. Both the dress and cross appear to be black,...
When hunting for immigrant ancestors, naturalization records, or those records created by individuals wanting to become U.S. citizens, can be immensely helpful. KHS recently received a donation of 10 rolls of microfilm containing naturalization records, specifically Petitions for Citizenship books, for 23 Kentucky counties. While the earliest records in this...
