Swisher County, TX Genealogy

The new gallery seems to be working out pretty well for what I was needing. I almost have it completely set up. I just need to go through the landmark album and then begin the long process of adding the headstone inscriptions. This will allow you to quickly find the one you are looking for using search. All the headstones are tagged with the last name so that should help you narrow down the choices to find what you are looking for. I also have a new collection of photos from the Leonard family to go though. Mr Leonard was a home builder in Swisher County and one of his descendants was kind enough to contribute his photo collection to the site. Other than that, it’s ready!

Check out the Gallery! You can now find most photos by using the tags I have added.

Do you have photos you’d like to contribute? Send an email to me at webmaster@swishertx.com and I’ll be happy to get them added!

I’ve been working on consolidating the obituary resources found on the multiple former Swisher County websites. I have finished consolidating the index so you can now look by Alpha instead of by year. I don’t know about you, but I would most likely know the name I’m looking for and not the year! I hope it helps you find what you are looking for easier. I will also be consolidating the actual obituary abstracts as well and possibly linking the index and the abstracts. During the index consolidation, I noticed that there were quite a bit of typos so be aware that the information will not be 100% correct but it may get you going in the right direction. If you can fill in some of the blanks here and there, please let me know by commenting on the page you find the error on. When using the menu, be sure to click on the main category as well. In the case of the obituaries, you will miss out on any other years not listed in the drop down currently. The ones in the drop down are the ones that I’m “finished” with. It just helps me keep track of where I’m at. If you can’t see all of the options in the drop down menu, you can always use the clickable link menu on the right hand side of the main page. I’ve done this so you can use it to your preference since not all browsers are equal.

My apologies for the lack of posts as of late. The day after Christmas, I had the surprise of finding out that I was pregnant with my first at the age of 38! And here I thought that opportunity of my life was long past. I’m now at the beginning of my second trimester and hoping that my energy will return soon. I had no issues with morning sickness or anything else really but all I can seem to do is sleep all day… and it felt like that’s all I did before! The pregnancy comes on top of an autoimmune disease that makes me tired as it is. I’ve been tinkering a bit with the page off and on but it’s not long until I’m dozing off again! I just received some information about a Swisher County quilt that has surfaced for repairs so I will share that with you soon!

Wow! The Swisher County Genealogical Home Page has already received an honorable mention for County of the Month, an award given by the project for content and design! I’m honored to be among the ranks of the others mentioned. Special thanks to Zoe Smith for all the hard work she has done collecting information for the site. I couldn’t have done it without her! Thanks to all the others who have provided content and who have worked on the site in the interim. I can’t wait for all the content to be loaded so I can start adding new features! Congrats to the other counties and especially the county of the month!

“The October County of the Month is Matagorda County. Congratulations to Carol Sue Gibbs, CC. The Matagorda County website is chock full of the information we expect to find and some information that goes beyond the basics.  The Matagorda County website provides a list of epidemics and the years the county was affected, several links for African American research in the county which is great for African American researchers. The site even has a 1906 Telephone Directory on it. Check out the old Southwestern Bell logo and 2-3 digit phone numbers!  Great job, Carol! 

The Honorable Mention counties for October are: Bosque, Fayette, Shelby, Swisher, and Ward. Hats off to these counties and their CC’s. Congratulations, everyone!

My thanks to the Surfing Committee for all they do each month in selecting the COM.”

Just a brief update to let you know what I have been working on:

• I have moved over everything but the obituaries from the TXGenWeb sight to my server but I have brought the index over here. I am slowly merging all the files to one so that hopefully it’s easier to find what you need. There are still quite a few pages still over at the original website on Rootsweb but I hope to get them over soon. I have tried to leave a redirect on those pages I have moved so that if the pages are still found via Google or a genealogy site, this site can be found.
• When working on the obituaries gets tiring, I’ve been switching over to label the headstone photos in the Gallery. I am done A and B now.
• I am also working on a third project, and that’s scanning photos from the estate of James and Jo Nell (Boggs) Moore. Jo Nell had quite a few photos of her classmates and I also have some of both of their yearbooks to scan. James had a small blueprint of the town of Kress that I’m excited to have found and that I will be posting here. He is descended from those who donated the land and originally helped build the town.