How You Can Help

Donations are always welcomed — whether they are time, archival materials, artifacts, or monetary. Often families will donate their collections, knowing that future researchers will find them easier at a central repository, instead of being with a distant relative that may or may not be found...and having to deal with a potential loss of their family's records.

Volunteering Your Time
Sharing Your Research
Donations: Artifacts or Archival Materials
Donations: Monetary
Our Wish List

Volunteering Your Time
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Our expectations of what would be online by now, and the reality of what appears online, differ substantially. The primary reason is the time involved to research, type, proof-read, and code the information you see....and answering the volumns of mail that we now get.

If you are near our office, we encourage you to come and join in the fun of expanding our website, help with our research (such as walking cemeteries), or helping other researchers. Students and adults are equally welcomed!

If you are outside of our area, and would like to help, let us know. We will gladly send material your way. Right now we are looking for help indexing books....so if you've got a keyboard and a set of fingers itching to get to work, let us know.

Sharing Your Research
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Family trees, histories, and photographs (originals or copies) are always welcomed. If you send in copies of your family tree, please send it in GEDCOM format so we will be able to access it (let us know if you need help saving your file as a GEDCOM).

We also ask that you include a note telling us how much (if any) of your research can be shared with others. Some allow unrestricted access and copies, others prefer to allow limited copies, some prefer to let others view their research but not allow any copies.

Donations: Artifacts or Archival Materials
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Should you wish to make a donation of archival materials or artifacts, we have only two restrictions. One, the materials must be related to York County or Nebraska's history. Two, you must be the owner or agent of the materials being donated. It would be helpful if you would include a completed Instrument of Donation. Otherwise, one will be mailed to you.

Our postal address is: York County Historical Association, P.O. Box 81, York, NE 68467. If you are shipping via UPS, please e-mail us for a shipping address. Please do not shipping to our street address, as there may not be someone at the building to accept it from the mailman or delivery peson — and we don't want your materials stolen by someone seeing an unattended box.

Unfortunately our budget does not enable us to reimburse you for the postage or any insurance necessary to send the materials.

Donations: Monetary
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Should you wish to make a monetary contribution, it may be in the form of a restricted/designated donation (you define what area or purpose it is to be used for), or it may be an unrestricted donation (where it is left to the association's discretion). We also accept memorials, designated or unrestricted.

Our Wish List
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Like any child being asked what they would like as a gift, we too can get pretty starry eyed when asked. This listing is not in any particular order, and isn't exhaustive either...but we didn't want to sound too greedy.

Archival Materials

• Any books that pertain to York County or Nebraska — history books, biographies, plat books, city directories, farm/ranch directories, and school annuals (or class updates) from any year.
  
• Family trees, histories or stories, even those still in progress, will continue to help us with the massive amount of genealogical requests that we are receiving.
  
• Any materials relating to the Spanish American War, especially Company A. The first company of volunteers from Nebraska was Company A from York County.
  
• Any sheet music or music books published by J. A. Parks & Company, or tied to J. A Parks.
  
• Photographs, including picture postcards, related to York County.
  
• Any publications, books, or artwork by York County residents, or about York County residents.
  

Monetary Donations
(any amount, designated funds or unrestricted funds)

• More than $10,000 is needed to bring in the remainder of the York newspapers on microfilm. We would also like to bring in additional copies regional newspapers. At this time we cannot do any lookups after 1955 because the cost of the film far exceeds our budget. Any amount would be welcomed, especially as the film can be ordered by individual reels and not necessarily as a single purchase.
  
  
• Approximately $2,500 is needed to erect a historical marker along the Nebraska City CutOff of the Oregon Trail. The site is between two road ranches on the trail (the 1860 version of today's truck stop on Interstate), and is also the site of York County's first known caucasian burials. Any amount is welcomed towards this project.

Office Furniture

• Fire-proof filing cabinets are a necessity for an archival library. We are always in need of more to house documents and photographs.