Family Locations Places our Family has Lived

KANSAS

U.S.A.

Source: Wikipedia

An Introduction

Family Surnames

Ancestral Counties

County Research Links

Genealogy Information Websites

Contact Information

State Flag

KANSAS

An Introduction

State Seal

The State of Kansas is a Midwestern state^[4] in the central region of the United States of America, an area often referred to as the American "Heartland". It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, from the French "Cansez", by explorer Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont, and after the Kansa tribe, who inhabited the area.^[5] The tribe's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind", although this was probably not the term's original meaning Residents of Kansas are called "Kansans."

For millennia, the land that is presently Kansas was inhabited by Native Americans. The first European to set foot in present-day Kansas was Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, who explored the area in 1541. In 1803, most of modern Kansas was secured by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Southwest Kansas, however, was still a part of Spain, Mexico, and the Republic of Texas until the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848. From 1812 to 1821, Kansas was part of the Missouri Territory. The Santa Fe Trail traversed Kansas from 1821 to 1880, transporting manufactured goods from Missouri and silver and furs from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Wagon ruts from the trail are still visible in the prairie today.

In 1827, Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of white Americans in the future state. The Kansas-Nebraska Act became law on May 30, 1854, establishing the U.S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas. Kansas Territory stretched all the way to the Continental Divide and included the sites of present-day Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo

Missouri and Arkansas sent settlers into Southeastern Kansas, namely Crawford County, Bourbon County, and

Cherokee County, who attempted to sway votes in favor of slavery. The secondary settlement of Americans in Kansas Territory were abolitionists from Massachusetts and other Free-Staters, who attempted to stop the spread of slavery from neighboring Missouri. Directly presaging the American Civil War, these forces collided, entering into skirmishes that earned the territory the name of Bleeding Kansas. Kansas was admitted to the United States as a free state on January 29, 1861, making it the 34th state to enter the Union. By that time the violence in Kansas had largely subsided. However, during the Civil War, on August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led several hundred men on a raid into Lawrence, destroying much of the city and killing nearly two hundred people. Until the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Quantrill's raid was the single bloodiest act of domestic terrorism in America.

After the Civil War, many veterans constructed homesteads in Kansas. Many African Americans also looked to Kansas as the land of "John Brown" and led by men like Benjamin "Pap" Singleton began establishing black colonies in the state. At the same time, the Chisholm Trail was opened and the Wild West era commenced in Kansas. Wild Bill Hickok was a deputy marshal at Fort Riley and a marshal at Hays and Abilene. Dodge City was another wild cowboy town in the late 19th century. In one year alone, 8 million head of cattle from Texas boarded trains in Dodge City bound for the East, earning Dodge the nickname "Queen of the Cowtowns." Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp were both lawmen in Dodge City. In part as a response to the violence perpetrated by cowboys, on February 19, 1881, Kansas became the first U.S. state to adopt a Constitutional amendment prohibiting all alcoholic beverages.

KANSAS

Family Surnames

The following are surnames of our persons in our databases(s) identified as having been born, married, died in this State.

McVicker; Moreland; Pinnell; Scruggs and allied families

Alexander; Amos; Bailey; Baker; Brown; Cooper; Dickson; Douglass; Elliot; Elliott; Fritts; Gardner; Giddens; Hitt; Johnson; Jones; Kohler; Lemons; Littlepage; Lovelace; Lyons; McVicker; Moreland; Pinnell; Riley; Ross; Skaggs; Tabler; Thomason; Tiffin; Valentine; Wilson

Bozarth; Peiffer; Quigley; Rhubart and allied families

Dellinger; Knecht; Pfeffer; Silar and allied families

To find out more about each family listed here click on this link

FAMILY SURNAMES - (General Index) or the appropriate LINK(s above.

KANSAS

Our Ancestral Counties

The following named counties are associated with the history of our DIRECT ancestors. To select a specific ancestral county, click on the following link. Here you will find additional links to our county pages where you can obtain information about our family gen-sites, images of localities, and surnames of persons, in our database, who have lived in the selected county.

Stevens; Sedgwick

To find out more about each county named above use the following LINK:

ANCESTRAL LOCATIONS

KANSAS