Civil War enlistment papers. Citizenship certificates of newly arrived European immigrants. A newspaper account of a claim jumper shot in the back. They’re all part of the millions of documents connected with homestead claims dating to the 1860s — important pieces of America’s past that now will be preserved and for the first time analyzed on a large scale by historical scholars, thanks to modern technology.

Settlers were given 160 acres under the Homestead Act of 1862 as long as they met certain requirements, built a home on the land and lived there for five years. The land offices that processed claims maintained files on each homesteader that included the paperwork used to “prove up” claims: fee receipts, baptism records, witness affidavits. It is, in short, a treasure trove of historical information — particularly in Nebraska, where nearly half the acres in the state were homesteaded.

In the past, researchers could review specific homesteading claims in person if they knew what and for whom they were looking, but there was no index, no searchable database and no way to review the records online.

That’s changing because of a major project to digitize homesteading claims at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. — home of the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

Workers just completed the first stage of the project, digitizing about 12,300 claims from the Nebraska City-Lincoln land office. They plan to start soon on 6,350 claims from the Omaha land office.

The documents detail the improvements made to people’s land and how much they were worth — the corncribs, silos and windmills. The documents include Civil War service records because homesteaders could use their service in the war to reduce the time they were required to live on a homestead before it became theirs.

The modern-day project is a partnership of the National Archives and Records Administration, UNL, Homestead National Monument, FamilySearch and Footnote.com. As the documents are digitized, they are added online to Footnote.com. The site is subscription-based, but the new records will be available for free at Homestead National Monument and archives facilities.

Source: Omaha World-Herald, August 23, 2010