Seward County Nebraska Genealogy Lookups

A Seward County volunteer has indexed five Milford area cemeteries. If you find your ancestor's name in the index, send an email to Lila Niemann, (LNiemannG @navix.net) with the subject of the message: "Milford Cemetery Lookups". Include the name of the cemetery and the starting page number from the descriptions below.

The 5 cemeteries that are included in this index are:

East Fairview: Located at the corner of 280th and Old Cheney Road in Seward County. Most, but not all burials are Mennonites. Reading was done in 1993. Covers pages 300 to 387.

Milford Cemetery: Located about a mile west of Milford on U.S. Highway 6. Most, if not all of the burials are Mennonites. Reading was done in 1993 and updated 23 Sept 1995. Covers pages 389 to 394.

Blue Mound Cemetery: Located less than a mile south of Milford on 238th (State Street in Milford becomes 238th as it leaves the city limits). This is a public cemetery and the Milford City Clerk has lot-purchase information. Updating of the volunteer's records was done in April and May 1991, and covers pages 395 to 461.

Soldiers and Sailors Home: At one time there was a Soldiers and Sailors Home near Milford, and many of the men who died there are buried at Blue Mound Cemetery, with military stones marking their graves.

Nebraska Industrial Home: There was once a home for unwed mothers, called variously Nebraska Maternity Home and Nebraska Industrial Home (perhaps other names) near Milford. Many infants died at the home and are buried at Blue Mound Cemetery.

Camden Cemetery: Located on the north side of Camden Road (south of Yankee Hill Road), between 196th and 203rd. There was once a village called Camden nearby. Reading was done in April, 1998. Covers pages 462 to 476.

Evangelical Church Cemetery: (Abandoned) Located just south of West O Street Road on 210th Street, east side, in P Precinct. Whether this cemetery belonged to the denomination that became Evangelical Lutheran, Evangelical and Reformed, or Evangelical United Brethren is not known at this time. There appear to be many unmarked graves in the cemetery. The cemetery was read in December 1998. Covers pages 477 to 479.

Look through the Milford area cemetery index here

Many old stones in Seward County have engravings in German. The lookup volunteer may be able to help with relationships, names of months, etc. Some stones in Camden cemetery are engraved in Czech. The lookup volunteer may be able to intrepret the names of the months and the words for "born" and "died.".

Note that when looking for names, be sure to check every possible spelling of surnames. Examples are: Iantzi, Jantzi, Jantzie, Jantze, Yantzi, Yantzie; Jausi, Yausi; Birky, Burky, Burkey; etc. The indexing program lists ALL upper case letters before LOWER case letters. Therefore, sometimes, the words "baby", "infant", etc. are at the end of the surname listing, after those people whose capitalized names appear.

Note that everyone whose name appears in the index is not buried in one of these cemeteries. The index includes all names on gravestones, so when a child is buried and the parents are named on the stone, they are indexed. If the parents have listed their children on their stones, the childrens' names appear in the index, but daughters' married names never seem to be listed.

St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Seward County, east of Gresham, was founded in 1885, and existed as a congregation until about 1990. Gary Martens will do lookups of birth (baptism), confirmation, marriage and burial records from the congregations centennial book, published in 1985. A summarized history of the congregation can be found here

Rev. Richard Scheimann of Indiana has done extensive research on the following family names: MAILAND, SCHEUMANN, BERNING, BUEHRER, ZWICK in the Marysville area. He will help anyone researching those names. Contact Rev. Scheimann by sending him an email with the subject Marysville area research.

Lookups are available from the following published histories of Seward County:

History of Seward County Nebraska by W.W. Cox, second edition 1905. The book was published by University Place Press, Lincoln (University Place), Nebraska.

General History of Seward County by John H. Waterman - Beaver Crossing 1914-1915, copyright 1916, by John H. Waterman. The book contains stories, usually 2 or 3 paragraphs each, about the earliest settlers of Seward County and deaths of the earliest settlers.

Contact Ann White by sending her an email with the subject Seward County history lookup.

The Standard Atlas of Seward County, Nebraska, 1908 contains a "Patrons' Reference Directory", consisting of about 400 vignettes written about Seward County citizens. Some are one-line, some more detailed, some a lot more detailed.

Examples of these vignettes are:
Bye, Chas. H., S. 4, Prec. B., P. O. Seward

Gumbel, Geo. A., Grain Buyer, S. 12, Prec. G, P. O. Seward. 1902." [came to Seward County in 1902.]

Ricenbaw, Norman A., Farmer, R. 17, Prec. I, P. O. Milford. Mr. Ricenbaw was born in Seward County in 1877. He is married to Alvina M. Suellwold.

Madson, Martin. Farmer, Banker, (Goehner State Bank) and breeder of Duroc Jersey Hogs, S. 20, Prec. K, P. O. Goehner. Mr. Madson was born in Denmark in 1837 and in 1870 settled in Seward County, Nebraska. He has served as township treasurer and as a member of the Township Board. He is married to Carrie Peterson. Mr. and Mrs. Madson are the parents of three children.

Sixty-two people are pictured in the "Illustrations" section of the atlas, along with a few residences and a number of businesses and landmarks. There is not an every-name index, so women are only found with their husbands or fathers, unless they are vignette subjects.

The volunteer will check to see if your ancestor is listed or pictured. If you know a Precinct or Post Office address from another source, she will check the plat map, perhaps locating landwoners who are not among the vignette subjects.

Note that the Precincts in Seward County are not named, but instead are only assigned letter A through O. The town and village plat maps do not list lot owners by name.

Send inquires by E-mail to: Lila Niemann, (LNiemannG @navix.net) with the subject "Atlas Lookup". Please be patient for a response because the volunteer isn't always home to receive messages!

Note that all of the Seward County offices charge $.25 per page for copies. However these offices generally do not do any lookups, but forward the requests to the Seward County Genealogical Society.

The Seward County Genealogical Society will do lookups in the Societies library collection and personal libraries which include over 100,000 newspaper file cards containing obituaries, birth, and marriage listings. They will also review old query letters for the society newsleter, and check family group sheets, ancestor charts and any other available sources.

The Society requests a $5.00 per surname donation, plus the costs of making copies and postage. Email requests for lookups to Trish Collister with Seward County Lookup as the Subject of the message.