Happy Birthday, Oklahoma
Today is the 100th anniversary of Oklahoma’s statehood. She entered the Union 16 November 1907.
That’s a pretty young state. At work, where we do lots of research for folks with ancestors in Oklahoma or Indian Territory, we spend a lot of time explaining that there just aren’t birth or death records for their family members. Vital records were supposed to be kept as statehood began, but the reality is that such records really aren’t reliable until the mid 1930s.
I usually consider myself a Texan–my dad’s family was there before statehood–the Coopers came from Tennessee in 1841–and I was born there, which makes me a 6th generation Texan. But, as I always say, I’ve lived in Oklahoma much longer than I lived in Texas.
My mother’s family was here in Oklahoma Territory before statehood, but as noted, statehood for Oklahoma is much more recent. My mother’s mother was born in what was eventually Beckham County, prior to statehood, in 1906. They had come from Alabama to file on land available south of present day Elk City, down around Mangum. Granddad was born out in Dewey County just as Oklahoma turned a year old–in 1908. His grandparents had come from Russia in 1874 to near McPherson, Kansas, and then came south to Woods County, Oklahoma Territory when that land opened for settlement.
I did find what are called “delayed birth certificates” for each of my maternal grandparents. They had filed them in the 1950s while they still lived in South Dakota. They had to have affidavits from other family members and they filled out the forms themselves–another type of interesting vital record–a birth certificate form completed by the person.
The Oklahoma Genealogical Society’s First Families of the Twin Territories has seen a flurry of activity with people documenting and submitting their lineage from a family member who was in Oklahoma or Indian Territory prior to statehood on 16 November 1907. I submitted one side of the family early on–I only had to document back to my grandmother and that was easy. I need to get the other side done. For a while, I was stumped on finding a marriage record for my granddad’s parents, but that was finally located in Zoar Mennonite church records in Goltry.
So happy birthday, Oklahoma, and congratulations to my ancestors who braved the wind and the drought and the dust to come to settle this grand land.