After 12 years, genealogical society finds a home

WILBER - The Saline County Genealogical Society, after spending its first 12 years operating without a permanent meeting place, has finally found the perfect place that they can call home.

Through action by the Saline County Board of Commissioners, the Saline County Genealogical Society has been allowed to use the vacant Saline County Jail building in Wilber to hold its monthly meetings and, more importantly, to store the club's valuable historical documents.

To help spread the word about the society's new meeting place, and to let people know what a valuable resource the genealogical society can be, the Saline County Genealogical Society will be hosting an open house from 1:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 7, at the old Saline County Jail in Wilber.

The Saline County Genealogical Society was started - almost as a spur of the moment decision - in 1992 when Saline County Courthouse officials began disposing of boxes containing documents that were no longer important to them. As boxes were being tossed out of the fourth floor window of the courthouse, Sandy Breitkreutz happened to be at the courthouse that same day. Realizing what the old boxes contained, Breitkreutz felt that the old documents being thrown out may serve a better purpose than landfill fodder.

So, Breitkreutz rounded up a few people and hauled the dozens of boxes away. What she ended up salvaging turned out to be documents like chattle mortgages, claim bills, billing receipts and such ranging in date from as far back as 1870 through the 1930s and 1940s. It was decided that these documents, if properly catalogued, indexed and filed, would prove to be an invaluable resource for helping trace a person's genealogy throughout Saline County.

The Saline County Genealogical Society was thus formed with the goal of organizing all of the historical documents received, and to provide a resource for anyone seeking assistance with tracing lineage.

With the society organized, the hard part was yet to come. Since the Saline County Genealogical Society had no permanent residence, the meetings scheduled for the first Monday of each month were constantly moving. And since it was difficult, if not impossible, to drag the boxes along for the meetings, the members gained little ground on organizing the documents.

Meetings were held at member's homes, the Crete Library, the Wilber Extension office and other assorted places throughout Saline County. The Wilber Library allowed the society the use of the basement to store the documents for a while, but when the library began its renovation project, the boxes needed to move yet again. The idea came up about the possibility of using the vacant Saline County Jail, so members asked the Saline County Board of Commissioners if they could use the empty space for society meetings and storage of all the historical documents they had accumulated throughout their 12-year history.

"We were lucky and the timing was right," said Saline County Genealogical Society librarian and secretary Judy Rada. "When we asked the county commissioners, they felt it was a worthy cause to allow us to use the jail. All of the members feel fortunate to finally have a place that the society can call home, at least for a little while."

"We got a good chuckle when we moved everything into the jail," said Barbara Colgan, society president, "because the boxes of documents left the courthouse 12 years ago and traveled all over Saline County before finally ending up in a building right across the street from where they started. We just figure it was meant to be here."

Rada said Colgan should be credited for her dedication, which is what made the move to a permanent residence possible.

"Barb really stuck with trying to find a home for the society. If not for Barb, we'd probably be out in the street still trying to find a place for all this stuff," Rada said.

Now that the society has a home, members can focus on their original goal of organizing the documents. On the first Monday of each month, members spend from 1 p.m.-5 p.m. working on the documents, helping people who are doing their own genealogical research, or organizing the society newsletter.

Then, after 5 p.m., the members hold their monthly meeting.

"It's a fun time to get together. We have a lot of fun going through all the old documents, finding something interesting and sharing it with the other members. It always seems like the four hours we have to work on the genealogy stuff just flies by," Colgan said. "It's kind of like what we tell people ... genealogy is like a disease; it's contagious and there's no cure ... but it's really a lot of fun."

The open house is the society's way of letting people know that they have a new home in Wilber and they are available to help, especially for people who are just starting out in genealogy.

"We've all been at this for a long time," Rada said. "There are a lot of people who want to get started, but they don't know where to begin or what to do. We are ready, willing and hopefully able to help with any genealogical questions that people may have."