COGenBlog

A soldier, who probably died more than 140 years ago, was finally laid to rest with a full honor guard of veterans on Friday. The unidentified man’s remains were found by a fisherman last summer near Leadville. Buttons and a small piece of cloth were used to determine that he was most likely a soldier during the Civil War period.

The entire story can be found at the Rocky Mountain News “Remains of likely Civil War soldier are buried in Grand Junction”

The stories of thirty young writers will be featured in the “Relatively Speaking” essay book. The book is part of the Children’s Family Story Project and is a collection of stories told to the students by family members.

The article, which appeared in Sunday’s Denver Post Ordinary families make history, too, includes a quote from Colorado Genealogical Society program chair, Pat Roberts.

Thanks to Bobbi King for the tip about this story.

The 1 January 2008 post on the blog Observations about Longmont, Colorado tells the story of Genevieve Dorsett, a Longmont City Librarian who disappeared in 1926. The writer does a good job of explaining their methods and how they used several local libraries to discover what became of Genevieve after she left Longmont. You can read the entire story at “Solved: Mystery of Longmont Librarian, Genevieve Dorsett”"

Meet Wendel Cox. Wendel is the new face in the Western History and Genealogy Department at the Denver Public Library. He starting work at DPL the beginning of March but it wasn’t until May that I had the opportunity to meet Wendel and learn a little about his background.

Wendel came here from the University of Kentucky where he managed a project to digitize Kentucky newspapers, cira 1900-1910. The project is part of the National Digital Newspaper Program, a national initiative guided by the Library of Congress and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Before that he taught at Arizona State University and University of Minnesoata Morris.

He has a degree in history from the University of Winnipeg, a doctorate in history from the University of Minnesota, and a MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Obviously, Wendel is well qualified for his position.

You can’t miss Wendel when he’s working at the Western History and Genealgoy Department desk. He always has a big smile and is cheerfully helping library patrons.

Wendel was born and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with one brother. He is presently working on his wife’s genealogy. She has Pennsylvania, English and Slovakian roots. He has found one of her ancestors listed in the English census as a “maker of philosophical and mathematical instruments.” Wendel and his wife have three cats: Othello (16), Little Girl (15), and Pekoe (5).

Welcome to Colorado, Wendel!

Philip J. Panum retired in December from the Denver Public Library. Phil worked at the library for 37 years, 21 of those years in the Western History and Genealogy Department. Phil is a nationally recognized map expert who has helped many of us over the years.

On 13 June 2007, Phil was awarded the Eleanor Gehres Award for his outstanding contributions to the Western History Collection.

Many thanks to Phil for sharing his knowledge and passion with the genealogical community of Colorado.