State by State Research : Colorado

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Continuing with my review of state history and genealogy research, let's explore Colorado.


Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection  www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org

Wow, over 200 newspapers are searchable at this site.  That is impressive.  Let's see what I can find.

The years range from 1859 to 1966.  Not too shabby.  You can search, browse by title, name or place. There is also a topics page, listings are  alphabetically arranged, which helps a lot when you looking for that certain event that could have dozens of articles written and posted.  The articles are arranged by newspapers and date of publication.  Now that makes things easier.

I looked up "Knife Throwing", and 20 articles suddenly appeared.  Cool.  Of course these are all from Colorado newspapers, but that is the neatest thing.  You can get much closer to a specific geographic area.

There are "Help" and "Forums" to help you with search suggestions.  But let's be honest, isn't it fun to just fumble around and do some hunting without help?  OK, ask for help if you want to.


Colorado State Archives  www.colorado.gov/archives

Looking for birth and death registers?  How about divorce indexes?  Probate, yep.  Other documents of naturalization, teacher licenses, tax lists, Supreme Court case files, etc. This site is for you if you have Colorado research  ambition...

Want Probate information? Go to Menu tab, scroll down to Public Records (or Genealogy....all roads lead to Rome you know), then scroll to Legal Records....scroll down to Probate. There is a list of Counties and the years that are held at the state archives. Only those cases prior to 1985 are listed.  But, not all of these records are at the archives.  You can order document copies.

Did I forget to mention Military records?  How about Penitentiary records? School records?

Folks, there is just so much on this website that I can't possibly write about all of it.  You will just have to visit it yourself.  But I promise you, you won't regret it...ever.  It would be nice if every state have such a  comprehensive collection such as  this.

Job well done, Colorado!

And let me remind you, Family Tree Magazine published an fantastic article about the many state websites available...I still have mine from December of 2011.  Be sure to visit Family Tree Magazine.com.  A great publication!