Abstracts of over 600 wills for Vanderburgh County, Indiana, extracted by Mrs. Arthur C. Bitterman. Book A was typed by Mrs. James A. Gentry, book B typed by Mrs. Marvin J. Huff, and published as one by the Vanderburgh Chapter of the DAR. Book A primarily covers wills written or filed within the time period of 1823-1849 and book B includes the years of 1849-1873. In both cases there are wills that fall outside those dates.
We begin our story in the year 1854 when the United States Congress organized the Nebraska Territory. Four years later, a law was passed defining the boundaries of its counties and locating their county seats. Merrick County now had a name and a county seat — Elvira. To the present day no one knows the exact location of Elvira, but many pioneers believed it was located two miles southeast of Clarks. The county received its name from the wife of the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Her maiden name was Elvira Merrick. The volume “History of Nebraska” tells us … Read more
The series contains original affidavits of registration that record personal information about each registrant, their photograph affixed to the majority of documents, and the registrants fingerprints. All of these are specific to Kansas, and most have the actual documents attached.