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I hope your having a great summer !!!

Welcome...
to the Jackson County, MN GenWeb website!
Jackson County is located in southwest Minnesota and borders Iowa.

Riverside Cemetery (Jackson) 1916. Click photo to access the Cemeteries page.
Jackson Co Historical Society photo



-Introduction and welcome
My name is Randy Wendel, Rootsweb volunteer coordinator and webmaster for Jackson County. My goal is to keep this website regularly updated with various items pertaining to Jackson Co genealogy and items related to the Jackson Co Historical Society. I'm always interested in additional items to post on this web site, so please feel free to contribute! Just click here to email me anything you wish to share. Please note that some items (especially on the -Surnames-Lookups-Queries- pages) will require your email associated with your posting. I do respect those who request deleting their email address so please specify so when you email me. I also ask that as long as your email address is posted anywhere on this site that you please notify me if you change your address. Also note it is a 150-mile drive for me to Jackson County and I do not have ready access to specific items of interest to your research (I do wish I lived much closer). Though I am a life member of the society, I do not have the opportunity to volunteer (at JCHS) as often as I'd like. Therefore, the least I can do on a regular basis is maintain this web site! Enjoy.

-Summer activities
I'm back home from a weeks' vacation, had around 5 email correspondances while I was gone. My thanks to those who emailed me regarding various items on Jackson County. Sorry for any delays replying while I was gone...I was in an area of Minnesota where there was virtually no cellphone service.

-Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis
Surprise! I always wanted to visit Lakewood Cemetery in south Minneapolis, so I thought I'd share a few photos. Not many fathers would spend a few hours on Fathers' Day visiting a cemetery out of mere curiosity, but it was a great and relaxing day which was a good opportunity to visit the cemetery I had heard about but never seen. I'm glad I went. Click here to visit my tour page.

-Cemetery pages updated.
Be sure to click on the -Cemeteries- page and scroll down to see which cemeteries are linked to individual pages. I am gradually adding headstone photos to the pages as I get them. Thanks to the latest photos received from Joanne Meyer! I am slowly getting through the uploads as I get the pages configured, so check back often. If you have any scanned headstone images, feel free to email them to me. Note that it can often take me some time to get them uploaded since I configure all pages on this website "manually." I use no website software...just good old-fashioned editing and photo configuring and uploading, etc. Also note occasionally I may crop photo content if there is unneeded background or "grass" around the headstone photo...my attempt to reduce the unnecessary file-size of the photos to help increase download speeds and reduce space needed on the server. Keep those headstone pictures coming!

-Additional museum hours added
Jackson Co Historical Society and Museum Director Michael Kirchmeier has informed me that the museum will be open Saturday mornings in addition to the normal weekday hours. If you're in the area on a weekend, you can visit the museum from 8am-12noon on Saturdays!

-Thanks to Martin Co Genealogical Society!
My thanks to Jackson Co neighbors Dona Paris and the Martin Co Genealogical Society for the obituaries! The society has cut obit clippings and taped them to index cards of those with ties to Jackson County dating back to the early 1900's. They have gone through them and mailed the last bundle of them to me of which I will forward to the Jackson Co Historical Society which will be filed in the family files kept at the museum. In the last bundle I even found 5 obits of my relatives...some which I did not previously have. Thanks to the society members who contributed to clipping and indexing these cards and mailing them to us!

-New banner on top of pages
Rootsweb.com provides free webspace to host these genealogy pages which comes with a minimal cost...banners! In late May 2008, a more obvious banner was added to all free website pages. Depending on on your display settings, it may cause the pages to display wider which may cause the need to move your lower scroll bar left or right to see the side of the pages. I have no control over their banner width but hopefully they can reconfigure the banner settings.

-Queries page added
A queries page has been added (see links at left of this page). On occasion, people may be interested in certain items of information that may not necessarily pertain to an all-out surname/family research project. Because of this, I have added the query page as a place for people to have a place to post inquiries of just about anything. I encourage everyone to take a minute to look over the page as well as emailing me with anything queries you would like to have posted. I have also received recent obits, histories, and photos. Take a look around and visit regularly...and...email me if you have items which may be of interest!

-Jackson Co Message Board
On the resources page I have included a new link to the Jackson Co message board. If you wish to subscribe to the messages via email, follow the simple directions noted at the bottom of the page. The board and email list is used by those seeking historical and genealogical information related to Jackson County.

-Roots Television online
A relatively new website has been online for some time called Roots Television and hosts many videos related to genealogy. If you've poked around the web enough, you've probably seen it, but for those who haven't...you should check it out. You will see some familiar faces in the genealogy sector and chances are you might just catch yourself spending a fair amount of time looking around at al the videos. You'll find just about everything covering many facets of genealogy and family history. To poke around the site, from the main page scroll down and mouse-over the various picture icons until you find a topic of interest. Have fun!

Jackson County...what's in a name?
Jackson County, established on May 23, 1857, was named after Henry Jackson, the first merchant in St. Paul and a member of the first territorial legislature. You will find Jackson County in the Southwest corner of Minnesota (43.6750 N, 95.1567 W). The county seat is Jackson. The historical society is located in Lakefield.

Jackson County is bordered by the following counties
in this geographical arrangement:

Murray Watonwan
Nobles
Jackson
County
Martin
Osceola
Iowa
Dickinson
Iowa
Emmet
Iowa


Visitors since Oct 23, 2007

Thank you for stopping by and visiting this website!!!

This page last updated: Aug 4 2008
Recent site updates:
-Aug 4: added Selective Service photo on PHOTOS page
-Aug 2: added Zelaha's and Lakefield school pictures on PHOTOS page
-July 14: added Albert Donwen link in military section of BIO's page
-July 14: added surnames DONWEN/DOSTAL to SURNAMES page