ResearchBuzz

First the cemetery index, now this. You GO, South Dakota! The South Dakota State Historical Society has added the “Biographical Index of South Dakotans”, an online index of biographies written on South Dakotans from 1897 to 1930. Like the cemetery index, this index was completed a while ago but is being made available online for the first time.

The index is available at http://www.sdhistory.org/arc/bioindex/biographicalindex.htm. There are a little over 7100 names listed in the index. The site has a key to the index (which lists the dozen books found in the South Dakota State Archive library which are referenced in the index) and an alphabetical index, from Casper G Aaberg to William Zwicky. The lists contain only the name of the person, the book number where they’re referenced (see the key) and the page on which they’re referenced.

There are no instructions on how to request copies of the biographical information, but the books are held in the archives and at various libraries throughout South Dakota. I did a search for Memorial and Biographical Record — Black Hills region in WorldCat, and after a little adjusting (Worldcat didn’t like the — part) I found what I think is the book in eight different libraries in the US, from the NYPL to the Harvard University Library to yes, libraries in South Dakota.

Hey! Check Amazon for books on South Dakota.

The state of South Dakota recently announced an index to a database of cemetery records. You can now do Cemetery Records Search at http://apps.sd.gov/applications/DT58Cemetery/ . As the site makes clear, this is NOT an index of all burials in South Dakota, but mostly the result of a survey of cemeteries in South Dakota in the 1940s. (The “Graves Registration Project”.)

You can search by first and last name, city and county, and cemetery name. A last name search for Smith found — argh — a lot of results, with no result count, from Fred Bauersmith to James H Smith (I am suspicious this is incomplete.) Result listings include name, death date (occasionally unknown), block and lot number, city and county, and cemetery name. And that’s it. You can request the full cemetery record by going to the archives (of course) or filling out the Cemetery Record Information Request form. Requesting one name is $10.60, but 2 to 5 names will run you $21.20.