National Orphan Train Complex

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Orphan train research helps find foster children between 1853 and 1930 who rode trains from New York City, Boston, or Chicago to new homes in other states or Canada. The genealogy of many of these 200,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children can often be traced back to the Children's Aid Society, or the New York Foundling Hospital, among others.

Children were placed throughout the United States and Canada.

Many children rode the train to the Midwest: Illinois, Indian, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, or Texas were they were "placed" with families.

See FamilySearch Research wiki articles on each state's: Adoption, Vital Records, and Emigration and Immigration articles.

Contact Information
E-mail: [mailto:orphantraindepot@gmail.com orphantraindepot@gmail.com]

Address:


 * National Orphan Train Complex
 * 300 Washington St.
 * PO. Box 322
 * Concordia, KS 66901

Telephone: 785-243-4471

Hours and holidays:


 * Tuesday thru Friday: 10:00am-Noon, and 1:00pm-4:00pm
 * Saturday: 10:00am-4:00pm
 * Closed:  Sunday, Monday, and all national holidays

Directions: Google Map

Internet sites and databases:


 * National Orphan Train Complex Internet site: history, rider stories, events, news, rider registry, research, FAQs, educational material, and national speakers bureau.
 * Orphan train research facilities addresses and links in New York, New England, and Nebraska.
 * State orphan train groups in AR, CO, IL, IN, IA, LA, MN, MO, NY, TX, and, WI.

Collection Description
The National Orphan Train Museum and Research Center (a.k.a. Complex) collect, preserve, interpret, and disseminate knowledge about the orphan trains, the children and the agents who rode them. This includes the history of the orphan train movement, and the stories of the children, photos, artifacts, and an archival collection. Also, they maintain a rider registry, a speakers' bureau, and the organization's online news.

NOTC has 66 volumes of orphan train rider records of the American Female Guarding Society (AFGS), photos, about 20,000 rider records, 9,700 names in computer databases, and Internet access to Ancestry.com.

Tips

 * Please contact Amanda Wahlmeier, curator, before visiting so she can see if NOTC archives have records of your person.
 * NOTC charges $20 for their research resources.
 * General admission: $5.00 Adults; $3.00 Children under 12;  $4.00 Group rate for 10 or more people.

Alternate Repositories
If you cannot visit or find a source at the , a similar source may be available at one of the following.

Overlapping Collections


 * Children's Aid Society, NYC, archives searches ($) for adoptions, and orphan train riders.
 * New York Foundling Hospital, can do records research for close relatives only of placed-out children.
 * National Archives I, Washington DC, census, pre-WWI military service pensions, passenger lists, naturalizations, passports, bounty land, homesteads, ethnic sources, prisons, fed employees.
 * National Archives at Kansas City federal censuses 1790–1930; military service indexes, pension indexes, passenger lists, naturalizations, photos, vital records, land, and Indian records.
 * Family History Library, Salt Lake City, 450 computers, 3,400 databases, 2.5 million microforms, 4,500 periodicals, 310,000 books of worldwide family and local histories, censuses, civil, church, immigration, ethnic, military, and Mormon records.

Neighboring Collections


 * Cloud County Genealogical Society newspapers, church records, censuses, plat maps, vital records, family histories, local histories at the Frank Carlson Library.
 * Cloud County Historical Society Museum has a small research collection.
 * Cloud County Clerk has births, marriages, and deaths 1885-1910.
 * Cloud County Register of Deeds, land records since 1867, and military discharges.
 * District Court Clerk has divorce, probate, and court records since 1865.
 * Frank Carlson Library, Concordia, houses the Cloud County Genealogical Society collection.
 * U.S. District Court District of Kansas, Kansas City, recent federal civil, criminal, and bankruptcy cases.
 * Concordia Kansas Family History Center can offer research suggestions, and can order genealogical microfilms from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
 * Repositories in surrounding counties: Clay, Jewell, Mitchell, Ottawa, Republic, and Washington.
 * Iola Public Library, for all Kansas including family folders, special indexes, and published records for many counties of Kansas.
 * Topeka Genealogical Society Library, 12,000 books, 700 periodicals strong on Shawnee County and northeast Kansas. Also includes almost every U.S. state, and many foreign nations.
 * Wichita Public Library Genealogy Center, has many genealogies with an emphasis mostly on books, periodicals, and special publications for southeast KS, and corners of MO, AR, and OK.
 * Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, clearly the best place to start researching Kansas ancestors including newspapers, county records, biographies, genealogies, land records, and railroads. Statewide births and deaths prior to 1894; City of Topeka births and deaths 1885-1912.
 * Kansas State Library, Topeka, largest book library in Kansas with county histories, ethnic sources, guides, inventories, and family genealogies. This is a main depository of historical documents about Kansas residents.
 * Kansas Genealogical Society, Dodge City, has the best set of family folders and genealogical periodicals in Kansas. . Also, clippings, obituaries, and an online catalog.
 * Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Topeka, since 1911 births, stillbirths, deaths; since 1913 marriages; and since 1951 divorce records issued for a fee only to immediate family members or representatives.
 * University of Kansas Kenneth Spencer Research Library, Lawrence, manuscripts, photographs, maps, histories, newspapers, periodicals, film and videotapes that document the "Kansas Experience" of pioneers, railroads, and American Indians. A depository for publications of Kansas and Douglas County.
 * Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas Archives baptism, confirmations, marriages, deaths, parish records.
 * Kansas United Methodist Archives, Baker University, Baldwin City, church records, newspapers, manuscripts, memoirs, obituaries, archives, reports.
 * Repositories in surrounding states: Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.
 * Mid-Continent Public Library Midwest Genealogy Center, Independence MO, one of America's best genealogical centers: censuses and indexes, 80,000 family histories, 100,000 local histories, 565,000 microfilms, 7,000 maps, and newspapers. Surrounding states are well represented.
 * Kansas City Public Library Missouri Valley Special Collections, The Missouri Valley Room has a great genealogy collection for Missouri and Kansas with biographies, periodicals, genealogies, diaries, photos, scrapbooks, and newspapers of the Kansas City area.

For Further Reading

 * Janet Coble, Children of orphan trains : from New York to Illinois and beyond ([Springfield, Ill.] : Illinois State Genealogical Society, 1994). ; . Mostly a name list with placing-out details.
 * Annette R. Fry, Orphan Train (New York, N.Y.: New Discovery Books, 1994). ; . Brief history of the movement.
 * Marilyn Irvin Holt, The orphan trains : placing out in America (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992). ; . Scholarly history of the movement.
 * Mary Ellen Johnson, comp., Orphan train riders: their own stories, 6 vols. (Baltimore, Md.: Orphan Train Heritage Society of America, 1992-2007). ; . Some of the stories are second-hand.
 * Clark Kidder, Orphan trains and their precious cargo : the life's work of Rev. H. D. Clarke (Bowie, Md.: Heritage Books, 2001). ; . Town-by-town distribution lists.
 * Donna M. Nelson, La Porte's orphan train children : the children's homes, orphanages and training school of Julia E. Work (La Porte, Indiana : D. M. Nelson, 2008). ; . History and list of local orphanage residents.
 * Orphan Train Heritage Society of America, Crossroads (newsletter). ; . Articles about about orphan train history, rider stories, and organization news.
 * Tom Riley, Orphan Train Riders : a brief history of the orphan train era (1854-1929): with entrance records from the American Female Guardian Society's Home for the Friendless in New York, 2 vols. (Westminster, Md.: Heritage Books, 2005-2006). ; . Mostly AFGS name lists with references to original documents.
 * Andrea Warren, We rode the orphan trains (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001). . Rider stories for Elementary and Junior High audiences.
 * Patricia J Young, and Frances E Marks, Tears on paper : the history and life stories of the orphan train riders ([Bella Vista, Ark.] : P.J. Young ; [Idaho] : F.E. Marks, 1990). ; . Rider stories.

Related Websites

 * United States Adoption Research Research Wiki article.
 * Orphan Trains Cyndi's List of Genealogical Sites on the Internet
 * Bobbie's Genealogy Classroom