Many families settled in, or at least passed through, Kansas sometime during the western migration in the United States. Neither my husband nor I have any direct lines who lived there, but there are some collateral Stufflebean families who left Missouri for new opportunities in Kansas.
Here are some of the resources I’ve found online that helped track them down:
FamilySearch has the largest collection of links, some of which tie into subscription sites, but many are free and online. Researchers can find everything from vital records to military lists to land records.
Kansas Historical Society – There is a large searchable database online of Kansas newspapers going back as early as 1854.
You need to click more than once to navigate some areas of their website, but there are three digital collections, Kansas Memory, Territorial Kansas Online and Western Trails that cover much of Kansas’ history.
Online Kansas Death Records and Indexes – Lots of links here, sorted by counties. Some are pay sites; others are free and online.
Kansas Interactive Genealogy – a ton of links to records, forums and misc. information
Kansas Source List for Genealogy Research – Links to Kansas sites and other more general sites, like Ellis Island
Ancestor Hunt – free Kansas newspaper search engine
Genealogy Trails – Butler County, Kansas
Kansas DAR Library – no online collection or research service available, but if you are in Dodge City, KS, they have over 4,000 books in their collection
Kansas GenWeb – The GenWeb is an under used resource, but has some great information and records
There appear to be many local libraries in Kansas that have good genealogical collection and records available online. If you don’t see your county of interest in this list, don’t despair! Search yourself to see what is available. There are too many counties in Kansas for me to search each one. The collections in this list just happened to come up in my general search for Kansas records.
If you are an experienced Kansas researcher and know about some sites that I haven’t included here, please leave a comment.