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Kansas: Local History & Genealogy Resource Guide

Compiled by reference specialists at the Library of Congress, this guide identifies key print and online resources for pursuing family history, as well as state, county and municipal historical research, for the state of Kansas.

Introduction

David T. Mitchell. Mitchell's sectional map of Kansas. 1859. Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.

Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state on January 29, 1861. Topeka, the state's capitol, was the center of the major 1954 civil rights case, Brown v. Topeka Board of Education in which the plaintiffs successfully challenged segregation in the city's public schools. This landmark case began the process of desegregating public schools throughout the United States.

This guide offers a selection of resources and strategies for Kansas local history and genealogy research. These include the print and digital collections of the Library of Congress, as well as external repositories and web sites key to finding forebears in the Sunflower state.

About Local History & Genealogy Reference Services

The Library of Congress has one of the world's premier collections of U.S. and foreign genealogical and local historical publications, numbering more than 50,000 compiled family histories and over 100,000 U.S. local histories. The Library's genealogy collection began as early as 1815 with the purchase of Thomas Jefferson's library.