October is American Archives month. To celebrate, we are sharing all things related to the State Archives! Our staff works very closely with our collections, which allows us to gain unique insights into these documents and materials. In this post, we highlight some of our favorite resources that we think have great value for personal history and should be utilized more by the public for genealogical research. Check out the list below, and if you have any questions along the way or are interested in accessing these treasures, don’t hesitate to reach out to our reference staff at archives@nd.gov or 701.328.2091.

Emily Kubischta, Manuscript Archivist

Yeehaw! In 1957, the 50 Years in the Saddle Club was organized in New Town by 22 cattlemen who had been ranching and working with cattle for at least 50 years. The group aimed to keep memories and tradition alive by annually gathering to reminisce, and their efforts resulted in the four-volume series “50 Years in the Saddle: Looking Back Down the Trail,” as well as a variety of biographies and stories of ranchers and other residents of western North Dakota. Although the biographies vary in terms of length and content, they are wonderful resources for genealogists and western enthusiasts alike. There is bound to be a person or topic of interest to anyone researching the Old West in North Dakota in the 50 Years in the Saddle Club Collection (MSS 11366).

Daniel Sauerwein, Reference Specialist

A great genealogy resource in the State Archives is our collection of yearbooks from various schools, colleges, and universities across North Dakota. While they require a little more background knowledge of your ancestors, such as knowing what school they attended, yearbooks are an exciting way to uncover photographs of ancestors from their younger days and learn what they did in school. Whether your ancestor was a star athlete or outstanding scholar, yearbooks also show familial and community ties, since by glancing at surnames you can trace your family’s trajectory through the years. We are always looking for more yearbooks to grow this resource so please consider donating your yearbooks to help preserve this history.

A selection of Bismarck High School yearbooks in the State Archives.

Ashley Thronson, Reference Specialist

A lesser-used resource at the State Archives for genealogy research is the local government collections. County court case files, including probate, civil, and criminal case files, property assessment records, and some township records are found in these collections. These records can be a little difficult to use as they are not digitized, the records are not all in one place, and the records we have for each county may vary. If you are interested in seeing what local government records we might have on your ancestor, check out the local government records pages on our website.

Virginia Bjorness, Head of Technical Services

The State Archives has nearly 1,400 family history books, many containing a treasure trove of research, stories, and pictures! Written and published by current and former North Dakotans (or relatives with ties to the state), these works can be an unexpected gem for genealogists. Some also contain valuable information about the settlement and development of places across North Dakota. Search for your family’s name here.

Lindsay Meidinger, Head of Archival Collections and Information Management

Although probably a bit of an unconventional genealogical resource, the North Dakota news film collections offer a unique glimpse at the past through a visual of the people, places, and activities that our relatives encountered during their lives. Covering nearly every corner of North Dakota and spanning the 1950s to the 2000s, the news film collections contain raw segments, complete stories, and a plethora of sports clips and games. I personally was able to find out more about my own genealogy through the WDAY-TV collection. One day while digitizing some film, I stumbled upon a segment titled “Postman Arrested and Taken to Banquet in His Honor.” My dad once told me about my great-grandfather, Thomas Cullen, who was a mailman in Fargo for 39 years and never once involved in an accident. Sure enough, the news film segment I had just digitized was footage of my great-grandfather! Through this archival news film, I learned that Fargo city officials and police officers decided to surprise him by “arresting” him and taking him to a party honoring his astounding driving record and service to the city.

Postman Thomas Cullen is "arrested" for his exemplary driving record. SHSND SA 10351-2146-00005

Sarah Walker, Head of Reference Services

We have a multitude of collections that provide solid genealogical documentation. However, our oral history collections are some of my favorite sources to use for family history research. Sometimes these oral history interviews are more focused on history than family history, and sometimes they are essentially biographies of the person or people being interviewed. No matter the focus, both history and personal history intertwine and shine through. Even if your family did not contribute an oral history themselves, their contemporaries may have. For example, I discovered in our collections an oral history of the wife of a doctor who took care of my mother’s family when she was young. That was a cool find!

Box of cassettes from the Bicentennial Oral History Collection (MSS 10157).

Here at the State Historical Society, we want to be sure your personal family collections are kept safe for future generations. With that in mind, we’ve prepared some guidance on caring for your collections in the event of potential flood events and water damage. We will look at preventative care tips and suggestions to follow or keep in mind as you work to protect and preserve your family treasures and history before a disaster strikes.

General advice for storing personal collections

Storage of your items should be in a space that has a stable and consistent temperature. The best storage space for home collections is a cool, clean, and relatively dry area with no direct light. We do not recommend storing items in attics or in most basements as these spaces can be humid, and the temperature may fluctuate drastically due to seasonal weather changes.

You should avoid placing items near heaters, radiators, chimneys, vents, electrical sources, and open windows. Take note whether your chosen storage area is at risk of water damage, such as being near plumbing pipes, sprinklers, open windows, vents, or sinks.

1) Housing your personal collection

VHS tapes should be stored upright in cases to prevent damage.

Housing options (basically the containers your collection is placed in) will vary depending on the items. The main consideration is whether these guard against insects and pests, block bright or direct light, and help keep objects clean and free of dust, which can scratch delicate surfaces like those of photographs.

We know people often default to basic plastic bins for storage, but plastic is not a good storage option because it will leach plasticizers that can affect the material within. We recommend acid-free boxes instead. That said, plastic is still better than nothing.

2) Buffered versus unbuffered?

When looking for housing materials online, you may come across both buffered and unbuffered options. If something has been buffered, calcium carbonate (better known as chalk) has been added to the cellulose material and acts as a buffering agent raising the pH level of the paper to be more alkaline. If the item being housed is paper or made of cellulose (like film, photographs, and cotton products) go for the buffered option. But for items that come from animals (e.g., leather, silk, wool, feathers, horsehair, and pearls) use unbuffered. This rule applies to file folders, tissue paper you wrap around objects, and boxes.

3) Considerations for general materials

Audiovisual and magnetic media: The ideal orientation for CDs, DVDs, audio, and video cassettes is to be stored upright like books, as stacking can cause stress and warping. The original containers work well for storage if they are clean and made of inert plastic. Video and audio cassettes should be wound to the beginning or the end, so that content on the tape is not exposed.

Photographs in the State Archives collections are sleeved due to high use by researchers and staff.

Flat/oversize items: For flat paper materials, a file folder is our go-to method, unless it is very weak, has tears, or is heavily creased. In that case, we would place the item in a polyester sleeve. The file folders can be stored flat or upright in a box. Speaking of tears, please do not use regular Scotch tape to fix them! There is special tape and other repair methods if you feel the items need conservation. We also recommend the removal of rubber bands, metal paper clips, and metal fasteners. If the item is oversize/poster size, then storing it may require a bit more creativity, but keep it flat with little to no pressure on top. If you must roll the item, do not roll it too tight, and remember to periodically unroll and roll it in the opposite direction.

Photographs: A common question is whether photos should always be sleeved? If you have many photographs and feel that putting them in sleeves is necessary, then we would recommend at least 3-millimeter-thick polyester, as it is the most chemically inert of the plastics used for archival storage products. But you only really need to sleeve photographs that are handled a lot, show signs of weakness or deterioration, or are of utmost importance to you. Otherwise, leaving photographs loose should not be an issue. Just store them flat or upright with some space in the box since you do not want to exert pressure on the photographs by shoving them tightly into the container.

Textiles, taxidermy, and natural materials: Textiles should be kept on padded hangers or placed flat in watertight buffered or unbuffered boxes (depending on the textile material). They should be stored away from leaky areas and sunlight, which can cause fading. Taxidermy should also be placed away from leaky areas and sunlight but on a high shelf. It’s important to use extreme caution when handling older taxidermy due to the risk of exposure to arsenic. Use coated watertight metal cases when storing wood, rocks, minerals, ceramic, and glass. Uncoated metal objects should be in a dry environment to reduce the risk of oxidation (rust).

Textile artifacts, like this circa 1880s blouse, should be stored in an acid-free box with tissue paper to support the garment. SHSND 1972.00169

While this certainly doesn’t cover every material type and situation you may encounter when caring for and housing your family’s historical items, it is a good place to start. If you have questions we haven’t addressed, our staff are happy to help. For questions related to paper, books, and photographs contact the State Archives at 701.328.2091 or archives@nd.gov. For artifact-related questions, contact our museum staff at history@nd.gov.

*This blog was co-authored with Local Government Archivist Megan Steele and two former museum interns, Zoe Harden and Emily Bruun.

Sometimes in the State Archives, we get phone calls or emails from individuals seeking advice who are trying to do genealogical research but are unable to come to Bismarck in person. Luckily due to the increased digitization of archival records, we can still help by suggesting the many digital resources available to anyone with a computer. The following are some Archives-recommended resources for the remote researcher.

Two websites that will get you a lot of bang for your search are Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. These websites provide access to census, naturalization, military, and vital records (e.g., birth, death, and marriage). A helpful aspect is their ability to filter the results to fit your search parameters. One can search for specific names, geographic locations, and dates, making large collections, such as the census, easier to navigate. That these sites contain records from the entire United States as well as foreign countries makes genealogy research so much more accessible, especially if your ancestor moved states or emigrated from elsewhere. While we use Ancestry.com for all our federal and state census searches at the State Archives, it’s also available free of charge through the many local libraries that have subscriptions to Ancestry.com.

Sites like Ancestry.com provide users with a wide range of search field options.

Another site that we recommend for people conducting personal research is Digital Horizons. Digital Horizons contains digitized materials from archives across North Dakota. You can find so much information in the site’s different collections, but for genealogy research we recommend the North Dakota Histories collection of digitized county and town centennial, jubilee, and other anniversary history books. There is also a selection of North Dakota atlases and plat maps that can be helpful when researching the land ownership of your ancestors. Additionally, Digital Horizons has a lot of digitized photographs from across the state, including from the State Historical Society of North Dakota, NDSU Institute for Regional Studies, and the Bismarck Public Library.

The Digital Horizons homepage offers numerous collections to explore.

In my opinion, the land patents from the Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office Records are a hidden gem among digitized records. These patents show the transfer of land ownership from the federal government to individuals, which is particularly helpful if your ancestor took advantage of the 1862 Homestead Act. Aside from the searchable database and digitized documents, this website has a lot of other cool features for researchers. There is an interactive map showing land descriptions on a contemporary map and also transcriptions of land patent contents. The information on this site as well as the State Archives’ collection of county plat maps can resolve many genealogical questions related to land and land ownership.

Land patent details from the Bureau of Land Management’s digital records.

As more records are digitized, it becomes easier to do genealogical research without having to travel to the individual state or country to access those records. The growing number of historical newspapers online at sites such as Chronicling America and Advantage Archives is another great resource. (Check out this blog post for inspiration as to how Chronicling America can assist with researching your family history.)

Genealogy and archival research are more approachable for every type of researcher than ever before, making roadblocks and frustrations less common. But if you are not sure where to start or have questions, State Archives staff are always available to help. We can be reached at 701.328.2091 or archives@nd.gov.

If you’ve ever had a conversation with our reference staff about using the State Archives’ collections for research, you probably heard about or even used microfilm. Most of our popular collections, such as our newspapers and naturalization records, are filmed and stored on microfilm for easy access in the reading room.

Microform is the reproductive process used to produce materials at an incredibly small size. There were originally four types of microform: microfilm, microfiche, super-fiche, and microprints. Microfilm and Microfiche are the only two still created today; here in the State Archives you will most likely find microfilm reels.

Microforms became popular for preserving and storing old newspapers and records in the 1930s and continued to be widely used in businesses, archives, and universities until the 1990s when the PDF became an easy and searchable format for all users. But microforms are still a well-used and well-loved resource for us in the State Archives. Indeed, there are a number of ways using microfilm and microfiche support our archival values of preservation, storage, and context within collections:

1) Preservation: Over time the chemicals used in mass-produced paper causes it to become yellow and brittle, and the paper starts to fall apart. Newsprint paper from the 18th and 19th centuries is especially vulnerable to this decay. By filming the State Archives’ newspaper collection and using the microfilm copies instead of the original for research and reference requests, we can prevent further damage to the material. Another great feature of microfilm is that it is a very stable medium, in that the material of the film does not start to deteriorate as fast as other formats such as paper, which can last about 50 years, or digital file formats, which are sometimes only compatible for 10 years or less. Experts say that microfilm can last for over 500 years if stored in the proper environment. Having a microfilmed copy for researchers and staff to use again and again helps us preserve the original copy for future generations.

An original copy of the July 14, 1864, edition of the Frontier Scout, the first newspaper published in what is now North Dakota.

A scan of the same edition of the Frontier Scout from the microfilm roll.

2) Storage: It may seem obvious, but microfilm is a simple storage form that can contain tons of document images while still being compact and lightweight. One roll of microfilm that is 35 mm in size can hold up to 800 newspaper pages, which means multiple years of a newspaper can often be found on one roll. This is also helpful for storing very large collections such as the U.S. census or marriage records. It is much easier for staff and researchers to move and use a small lightweight roll as opposed to boxes full of heavy paper.

Here a microfilm roll is juxtaposed with a physical box of newspapers. A single role of microfilm can contain multiple years of a given newspaper.

3) Context: Archival collections are organized and best researched as a whole so the creator’s original intention and the purpose of the information is as complete as can be. Digitized archival searches that only return individual documents may remove important context. Case in point: If you only look at the one document or article you searched for, you don’t get the information you did not search for. A microfilm machine does not have a search function and won’t allow you to skip the surrounding pages easily, thereby preserving the wider context and allowing facts and information to be studied in the whole rather than in a vacuum.

Finally, the goal of all archives work is to balance preserving and caring for original documents with providing the best and easiest access to the collection in question. Microfilm may appear to be a dated technology to some, but it still fulfills this objective well and is a valuable resource to the State Archives and researchers everywhere.

I love stories about the Depression-era gangsters, bootleggers, and crime bosses of Chicago and New York City, but they are rarely something I get to research at the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

Imagine my surprise when I was shown this photo below of James Vincenzo Capone, eldest brother of infamous gangsters Al, Frank, and Ralph Capone, in our Frank Fiske photograph collection. Taken at Fort Yates, North Dakota, it shows James Capone, who by then was known as Richard James “Two Gun” Hart, surrounded by confiscated liquor stills. Immediately I had questions: How did a Capone brother end up in North Dakota as a Prohibition agent? And how did this photo come to be taken by the early 20th-century photographer Frank Fiske? I began searching through our newspaper holdings as well as the vital records available on Ancestry.com to learn more.

Richard James “Two Gun” Hart (born James Vincenzo Capone) with his collection of confiscated stills, 1926. SHSND SA 1952-00088

I soon found out that this Capone had immigrated in 1893 with his parents to the United States where the rest of his eight siblings were born. At age 16 James left New York to make his life out West, choosing to distance himself from his Italian heritage by eventually changing his name to Richard James Hart. He married Kathleen Winch in 1919 and worked as a Prohibition agent in the western Plains states.

Meanwhile, Frank Fiske was born in 1883 at Fort Bennett, Dakota Territory, and grew up around Fort Yates. He learned photography from S.T. Fansler at Fort Yates and though still a teenager took over the studio after Fansler left town in 1900. Fiske would continue to work out of Fort Yates, save for a few brief periods, until his death in 1952. While Fiske was best known for his portraits of Native Americans, the true relevance of his photographs comes from his documentation of everyday life at Fort Yates and the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

Photographer Frank Fiske in 1910. SHSND SA 1952-00111

As former Photo Archivist Sharon Silengo has noted of his legacy: “Fiske produced pictures of the life that the Sioux of the Standing Rock Reservation really lived—they were involved in celebrations when allowed by the government agent, they competed in rodeos with other cowboys, they performed in bands on instruments that they were taught to play in their boarding schools, and they married in the white way including wearing the garb of a fancy wedding dress and dress suit, not their traditional dress that would have been worn in the past. These are photographs of the reality of life for Indians.”

From left, John Brought Plenty, Jersey Grey Bear, Francis Mossman, Eugene D. Mossman, and Richard Hart with confiscated stills and liquor, 1926. SHSND SA 1952-01623

While we don’t know much about their relationship, Fiske and Hart’s paths crossed when Hart was a special agent for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, working alongside Fort Yates Superintendent Eugene D. Mossman to confiscate illegal stills and liquor in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and surrounding areas. In January 1926, the Sioux County Pioneer reported that a series of raids on the reservation conducted by Mossman netted “many victims besides a lot of evidence and other paraphernalia.” Hart and officer Jersey Grey Bear picked up farmer Frank Slawa and “confiscated a five gallon jug of moonshine.” One of these raids was reported to have resulted in the removal of 25 gallons of alcohol from the reservation. Due to his skills, Hart was described by the paper as “a most crafty enforcement officer.” Fiske’s photographs make it clear just how much was confiscated in such a short period of time.

The photographs taken of the raid spoils and officers also shed light on one facet of the reservation life that Fiske would spend his life documenting. The photos preserved these events and speak to the impact Prohibition had on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Interestingly, according to records in Fiske’s business ledger, Hart purchased 12 postcards of these photographs of him for a total of $5.00.

Hart poses with a Colt .45-caliber revolver. SHSND SA 1952-06187

As for Hart’s efforts to keep his identity under wraps, a year before his death in 1952 his secret as a Capone was revealed to the nation when he was subpoenaed to appear before a jury in his brother Ralph’s tax evasion case. Fiske also passed away in 1952, and one can’t help but wonder what he might have thought about the revelation or if he already knew?

October is American Archives Month, which highlights the work archivists do as well as the collections, stories, and history we share with the public. I thought we’d kick off our celebrations in the State Archives with a discussion of the best (or worst) archival-themed scenes in film and TV. After all, archivists love seeing archives, records, and old books used in our favorite media, but some depictions better represent us and our work than others. I asked staff what their favorite or least favorite archives-related movie or TV show scene was and why, and here are their top answers:

Anne Loos, Audiovisual Archivist
In “Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones,” Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi visits the Jedi Archives, where the chief librarian, Jocasta Nu, helps him search for information about the planet Kamino. When no record of Kamino can be found, Obi-Wan says to Jocasta, “Impossible. Perhaps the archives are incomplete.” She tersely responds, “If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist.” The “Star Wars” canon later establishes that Jedi-turned-Sith Count Dooku erased the record about Kamino from the Jedi Archives. As much as I want to believe that the Jedi Archives is infallible, this certainly raises questions about the vulnerability of its records to internal and external tampering. That said, if Obi-Wan had not reacted in a manner that would offend any library/archives professional and instead kindly pointed out that the gravitational pull indicated there was in fact a planet there, then perhaps Jocasta would have continued to work with him to get to the bottom of the missing planetary record.

Larissa Harrison, Government Records Archivist
“The Mummy,” starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, came out in 1999 while I was finishing grad school classes in public history. It gave me and my fellow students an inspiring character in the figure of Evelyn Carnahan, a female librarian who is active in the adventure, not simply sequestered in the library. Yes, she is more an Egyptologist and archaeologist than your typical reference librarian. However, she uses her library knowledge to defeat the Mummy and go on more adventures. If Dr. Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones Jr. can spend more time in the field than the classroom, then Evelyn can leave the library and still be proud of where she gained her knowledge. The film also represents one of the few times a librarian is not depicted on the silver screen as a meek and mild woman in need of breaking out of her shell. Evelyn has a goal independent from the men in her life, and she goes after it, making her own decisions on her own terms.

Emily Kubischta, Manuscript Archivist
One of my favorite archives scenes is from the movie “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” Led by torchlight, wizard Gandalf the Grey visits a room filled with ancient scrolls, stacked books, and dusty documents to determine whether he remembers accurately the story of the One Ring of power. Teacup in hand, pipe in mouth, Gandalf reads the millennia-old account of Isildur, High King of Gondor, which tells of the discovery of the ring and notes the text (in the language of Mordor) that appears on the ring when it is submerged in fire. Gandalf uses that information to determine whether Bilbo Baggins’ magic ring truly is the “one ring to rule them all” under Sauron’s evil power. This knowledge drives the fate of everyone in the story as well as the future of Middle Earth.

Although smoking and tea drinking are no longer allowed in archives, I like this depiction of archives and libraries as places to retrieve common knowledge and information that has fallen out of use, providing a final, authoritative answer to a variety of life’s important questions. Although modern archivists store their materials according to professional standards to protect them from dust, cobwebs, light, and other deteriorating environmental factors, the system at Middle Earth’s archives apparently preserved the documents in their care for thousands of years, rendering them usable and useful when needed. Furthermore, a helpful archivist was there to show Gandalf the collection and guide his search, just as our reference staff are available for researchers at the State Archives.

Sarah Walker, Head of Reference Services
I’m sure we all enjoy seeing our profession reach a wider audience through television and movies, but I also think these depictions serve a useful, popular culture link to some of our lesser-known materials, such as microform. While I still consider the scene that allows me to reference microform in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” to be one of its very few redeeming features (sorry!), there are a surprising number of other film references to this medium. A favorite of mine is “WarGames,” starring young Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. I watched it for the first time after I had started working at the State Historical Society of North Dakota, and while I found it enjoyable, I have to admit that aside from its anti-war message, the main thing I remember about this ‘80s-tastic movie was that Broderick’s character uses microfilm. Let me just add that I literally cried out in excitement when I realized he was using a microfilm reader like the ones we once had here in the Archives.

Megan Steele, Local Government Records Archivist
In “Desk Set” (1957), Katharine Hepburn plays Bunny Watson, the head reference librarian for the Federal Broadcasting Network in Manhattan. Bunny is an amazing source of knowledge gained largely from her years working in reference. But when Richard Sumner (Spencer Tracy) is called in to install his invention EMERAC (Electromagnetic MEmory and Research Arithmetical Calculator), staff fear this “electric brain” is meant to replace them. This movie is great at covering some of the quirks of working reference, mainly the flood of questions from the serious to the supremely random that staff encounter. For me this movie shows that computers are good assistants, but nothing beats institutional knowledge within the information field.

Joy Pitts, Photo Archivist
The Vatican archives scenes in the movie “Angels & Demons” show viewers an impenetrable fortress of knowledge. But real-life archives (and probably even those of the Vatican) do not have the resources to create a completely hermetically sealed, oxygen-fueled system of rooms to house archival materials. In the movie Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) searches the Vatican archives for clues to an Illuminati plot to take over the Catholic Church. In one scene, Langdon enters one of the archival rooms with a member of the Swiss Guard, and after a short period of time, an unidentified person shuts off the oxygen to the room. To escape, Langdon must not only knock over a huge shelving unit but also shoot at bulletproof glass. While it would be best practice to keep all materials in an anaerobic environment, only important materials/collections would ever be stored in such a manner. (Due to the slow pace of deterioration by exposure to environmental factors—apart from light, light is very bad—not all materials are important enough to justify the costs associated with the building and upkeep of such a system.) I have seen a hermetically sealed system at the National Archives for the Declaration of Independence and other foundational documents, but these were sealed cases not entire rooms. So please don’t think most archives have a system of these rooms that we hide from the public—that’s just silly.

Daniel Sauerwein, Reference Specialist
There are a couple fun references to the use of archives or research collections in episodes of “The Simpsons.” One of my favorites is the season seven episode “Lisa the Iconoclast,” where Lisa Simpson visits the Springfield Historical Society to do research for a school paper on the town’s founder, only to find a document that reveals his darker side. Her research garners pushback from the town’s residents, but her findings are proved correct. This episode conjures up the issues sometimes faced by archivists and historians when dealing with materials that challenge long-held beliefs and interpretations about a particular location’s past. Another example is from the season six episode “Sideshow Bob Roberts,” when the character Sideshow Bob wins the mayoral election. In the episode, Bart and Lisa investigate Bob’s win and in the process visit the Springfield Hall of Records, where they view the voter rolls for the election and discover fraud. These episodes provide examples of how archival materials may be used to gain knowledge and enact change.