Nebraska was part of the Louisiana Purchase acquired from France in 1803. Before the 1860s most pioneers passed through Nebraska along the Platte River Valley on their way to Oregon and California. First attempts to form Nebraska Territory were begun in 1851, but territorial status was not achieved until three years later. Nebraska Territory was created in 1854 as a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a political compromise regarding the expansion of slavery. Although this act officially opened the area for white settlement, the real impetus to organizing the territory was the building of a Pacific railroad, not colonization. At that time Nebraska Territory extended to the Canadian border. The center of government was located in Omaha, which sits on the Missouri River. As the population grew, migration worked its way westward along the rivers, such as the Platte, and via the rapidly developing railroads.

The first federal land office was established in 1855, but it was not until after the Civil War that extensive settlement began, leading to Nebraska's admission to the United States on 1 March 1867. The Homestead Acts of 1862 and 1866 governed the disposal of the public land, but those acts do not account for the large migration to the state. The settlement of Nebraska required a new view of the economics of an unfamiliar geography and an advance in technology. The former obstacle was overcome by the cattle ranchers whose animals grazed the vast prairie, and the technology came with the invention of farming implements. These agricultural innovations included barbed wire, the steel plow, the spring harrow, and the windmills—inventions that did not come into widespread usage until the years between 1870–90. It was during that period that the Great Plains experienced its tremendous growth in population. By 1880 the years of good weather and new productivity in farming equipment had brought the population growth in Nebraska to more than 450,000.

Not only farmers, but merchants, capitalizing on expanding markets, moved to Nebraska and created small towns, especially along the developing railroads. In fact, between 1860–70 the city population of Nebraska increased 416.6 percent, indicating that not all ancestors in Nebraska lived on farms.

Both natives and foreigners were attracted by the government promotion of the land acts, advertising by the railroads and steamship companies, and immigration efforts by the federal government. European groups that settled Nebraska include individuals and families from Russia, Bohemia, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and the British Isles.

Years of unprecedented growth and frontier expansion soon gave way to negative repercussions. Abysmal living conditions, inflated land prices, low profits on produce, and poor weather brought a reversal of fortunes and mounting dissatisfaction with economic and political conditions. From that discontent, came the agrarian political movements.

Genealogical research in Nebraska must be completed at both the state and county level. Few statewide Nebraska indexes exist. The researcher will find it necessary to do a great deal of family research at the county level where the individual family resided.

Naturalization

A card index to pre-1906 naturalizations for all the counties in Nebraska, western Iowa, and some counties in eastern Iowa in the 1930s and 1940s was compiled as a WPA project. This index has been microfilmed and can be searched at the Nebraska State Historical Society. Each card contains the name, country of origin, date of naturalization, and the court, county, and state of naturalization. The researcher should be aware that the name of the state does not appear on cards for many Nebraska counties. The reverse side contains the type of naturalization and the volume and page number where the record is located. This index includes only those who received their final papers in Nebraska. It does not report those who only declared their intention in Nebraska.

Other Ethnic Groups

Czech bibliographical materials can be found in the archives at the Nebraska State Historical Society and in general stacks at Love Library on the University of Nebraska campus which has a policy of not assisting in genealogical queries. These materials must be searched by the individual.

A special census of Germans from Russia living in Lincoln, 1913–14, is available on microfilm at the Nebraska State Historical Society under MS 451 (H. P. Williams Collection).