Wisconsin Digital collections at the UW

 

If you have not used this collection, you could be missing out on a HUGE, source of records.

In 2000, the University Digital Collections  system, in cooperation with the UW faculty created this Free access to the digital collections.  They have worked with public libraries, and the State of Wisconsin, to preserve and make available FREE to the public, researchers and students.   

The collection could make you dizzy. My focus is going to be on what can help us, as Genealogist and Wisconsin Historians.

This first collection: The State of Wisconsin Collection, 

For a broad search, click the link below and a list of: Materials in the Collection    list     appears with click-able links.   

http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI

OR

At the top of the page you can click : Search the collection  

I rarely search by text, reason: if you don't get just the right word, it will tell you nothing exists. 

I prefer the first choice, as I get a wide view of what is here.

For example: scroll down to: Janesville Past link on the main page (about the middle of the page).

http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI/JanesvillesPast

The first thing you see on this page, Janesville Past, is a window that says "Click to browse by collection".

I would strongly suggest you skip it this first time.  Scroll down the page you are on, and you will see more of an explanation of the collection, keep going down, you will now see more of the collections.

Here you will find City and County Directories for Rock county residents, businesses, Janesville and Beloit.

The directories cover from 1857 to  1931, not complete.  Of note 1889  1890 1892/93  -a great help for filling in the blanks of the 1890 lost census.

Note the 1878-1879 directory even covers La Crosse. 

All click-able, and able to view online.

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page for the Additional Resources page. Obituary index/ Historical Society/Genealogical Societies. 

Remember to go back to the top of the page, and check out the collection by Subject Grouping.

Please leave your comments.

Nadine Guilbault

Wisconsin Genealogist 

Book Review: Polish Parishes of the Diocese of La Crosse: Nineteenth & Twentieth Centuries

Polish Parishes of the Diocese of La Crosse: Nineteenth & Twentieth Centuries

Written by Reverend Janusz Kowalski, Ph.D ; (Stevens Point, WI: Point Publications, 2013).  Pp. 276, ISBN 978-0-9837283-5-1.

This book was original reviewed by John M. Grondelski

Polish American Studies, Vol. 71, No. 2 (Fall 2014), pp. 91-93

John M. Grondelski, reviewer, [with written permission granted] “As these parishes disappear, the imperative to record their history grows ever greater.  Fr. Janusz Kowalski, who holds a doctorate in history from the University of Rzeszów, contributes to the cause with this history of Polish churches in the Diocese of La Crosse, which today covers 19 counties in central and southwest Wisconsin, the state currently with the highest percentage of claimants of Polish ancestry in its population.”

After some sleuthing I found the book, and purchased a copy. As a Wisconsin Genealogist and historian of Polish genealogy research, I feel this book is a good buy to add to my reference shelf.

The book is about the Polish immigrants settling in Wisconsin from 1868 to 2000 in the La Crosse Diocese. The boundaries were ever changing, and Appendix maps are included with the changes.  It covers brief church histories and in many cases pictures of the churches. Of the 37 churches covered; here is a sample list;  St. Florian of Hately, St. Peters in Stevens Point, Sacred Heart of Jesus of Cassel, St Stanislaus in Superior, St. Mary’s of Hurley, Peplin, Lublin, Wausau and more.

Informative chapters about the schools and the Fraternal organizations, such as the Catholic Order of Foresters, Rosary Society and the history of them.

A brief chapter is about the Roadside shrines and cemeteries, and the Polish traditions linked to them.

Traditions of Polish Catholic Baptism, Funerals, and Wedding customs. I caught myself, a catholic, pole, saying to myself, “That’s why they did that” on more than one occasion.      

The book is footnoted and Bibliography included with some websites for further information and sources.

Cost: 19.50 + 6.00 shipping

You can order your copy the old fashioned way, by mail:

Reverend Janus Kowalski

St. Therese

Attn; Mary Kluman

112 W Kourt Street

Schofield, WI 54476                                   By: Nadine Guilbault