Charles H. Browning and Your Genealogy

In 2001, I received a letter from the son of Charles H. Browning of Evansville, Indiana. He described his father’s Obituary Notice Index of more than 200,000 cards taken from the Evansville Press and Evansville Courier and Press, 1906-1990.  These cards were scanned into a computer database.  Then the obit notices from 1991-2000 were added by entering them directly into the Browning Genealogy Database.

Next, the database was loaded onto the Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library website http://browning.evpl.org.

Charles H. Browning spent more than 50 years other indexing other, important entries from the newspapers and adding details from other sources (I suspect including mortuary details from the Browning Funeral Home).  He did 40,000 cards on World War II veterans and his People of Evansville Study yielded 537,000 cards.  These two databases are part of the Evansville Library, Local History Database.

All of these cards are available to you online!

These truly remarkable genealogy resources can be accessed online.  By clicking the red HOME button.  You can choose standard search, advanced search, or keyword search on the search menu.  And an individual print screen appears.   No library code or access card is needed.

The Local History Index also includes scanned images from the news clippings files which the library maintained for many years–still an on-going project.  The Browning Family members and the staff of the Browning Funeral Home keep Charles H. Browning’s projects current.

Searching this file for marriages alone could open your pedigree–Evansville is a River town where people from surrounding counties in Indiana and in Kentucky ran away to be married.  What a find–a long, lost, gretna green wedding!  And if you make a find, the Library staff can supply a copy of the newspaper entry for you.

Surely the Grinch cannot steal your Christmas thanks to Charles H. Browning and his Browning Family and staff.  Your favorite genealogy guru, Arlene Eakle http://www.arleneeakle.com

PS  Stay tuned through these holidays.  Your genealogy corner just may be the cheeriest part of your world!

This entry was posted in Blog. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply