Arkansas Confederate Pension Records

Our Partner Project with FamilySearch is up and running. We are indexing Arkansas Confederate Pensions. If you would like to help with this project, register for a free FamilySearch account, then send me your username only. I will add you to the group. Send to jhdavenport39@gmail.com. Very first batch I indexed had a Davenport in it, in a county where I would not have expected him to be! Great records......

Arkansas Confederate Pension Indexing Project

CAGHS has partnered with FamilySearch Indexing to index the Arkansas Confederate Pension files, if you are interested in helping with this exciting project, send me an email at jhdavenport39@gmail.com. We hope to go live next week. The images are online now at Familysearch.org, but the index will make them easier to access.

Butler Center for Arkansas Studies Launches New Civil War Website

In conjunction with the start of the Civil War Sesquicentennial, as well as the kick off of Arkansas Heritage Month, the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies is pleased to announce the launch of a new website devoted to the Civil War in Arkansas. Titled “A Nation Divided: Arkansas and the Civil War,” the site presents a wealth of information on our state’s role in its most trying conflict. The site, which has been sanctioned by the Arkansas Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission, provides easy accessibility to the Butler Center’s vast Civil War–related holdings. Of primary interest to researchers will be the large number of manuscript collection finding aids posted to the site. The finding aids, which serve as gateways to the collections, are divided into Union and Confederate sources and provide detailed descriptions as to the contents of each collection. Within the collections, researchers will find hundreds of letters, diaries, official documents, and photographs. In addition, a number of the primary materials have been digitized and placed in the site’s digital gallery. Now, Arkansas’s citizens as well as people from around the world will be able to quickly and easily view historical documents and photographs related to Arkansas’s role in the Civil War. Two of the first collections to be digitized provide information on greatly under-studied topics of the war: African American involvement and Arkansas’s Unionists. In conjunction with the annual themes developed by the Sesquicentennial Commission, we have also posted material related to the remembrance of the war in Arkansas. Other Civil War–focused resources on the site include lesson plans for teachers; lists of books, photographs, and microfilm available in our research room in the Arkansas Studies Institute; and information on the numerous online databases that we subscribe to. It is our hope that the website will not only spur research into new areas of Arkansas’s past, but that it will also broaden our overall understanding of the war and its effect on our state. Please check it out – http://www.butlercenter.org/civilwararkansas/

Monthly Genealogy Course: Finding Family Facts

Every second Monday
3:30 to 5 p.m.
Arkansas Studies Institute, Room 204
401 President Clinton Ave.

The Butler Center offers a beginner’s genealogy class the second Monday of every month, taught by Rhonda Stewart, the Butler Center’s local history and genealogy expert. Participants will learn how to use online databases and city directories, as well as how to archive family documents. Jump-start your genealogy research with this fun and creative way to learn about the past.

For more information, contact the Butler Center at 501-320-5700.