Historical lecture presents Boulder County's early residents

Do you ever wonder how to look up obscure information collected before there was the gold mine that is the internet? Historian, genealogist, and coordinator of the Boulder Pioneers Project Dina Carson is an expert at digging up loads of important data collected prior to "Googling" becoming a part of our vernacular.

Discovering and deciphering piles of archive materials in repositories is Carson's super-power and she's going to share the fascinating material she has uncovered about folks who could have been our neighbors here in Boulder County well over a decade ago.

Carson's presentation titled "The Boulder Pioneers Project: Trappers, Traders, Native Americans, Gold Seekers and So Many Others" is part of the Niwot Historical Society's Now & Then Lecture Series, and will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m. at the Left Hand Grange.

The year before Boulder's sesquicentennial (150 year) celebration held in 2009, as part of the committee preparing to acknowledge that milestone, Carson pondered, "I wonder if we even know who all these early people were who came to Boulder?" Her curiosity sparked the Boulder Pioneers Project, a study of the trailblazers who came to the area before 1876, the year Colorado became a state.

As she began her research into what she presumed would be a very narrow and limited amount of original source material, Carson unexpectedly found herself knee-deep in documents in repositories all over the country. "I just started chasing them down, like you pull on one little thread and you start unwinding a sweater," she said.

To make her research manageable, she decided the project should encompass a specific timeframe of 1859-1876, the Territorial Period. Carnegie Library, the University of Colorado archives, the Denver Public Library and the Colorado State archives were the primary sources of data for Carson's project.

After realizing that Carson was going to be a relentless researcher, employees at the Colorado State archives handed her the key to access records herself.

Her assemblage of information has resulted in an extremely comprehensive history of about 17,000 people who lived in Boulder and the events that occurred to actually form the county of Boulder. Some folks came, worked in the mines, and may have moved on, she said. But, there were also many people who stayed and now have an enduring lineage in the area. Carson said she knows of at least two people who are the sixth generation of original Boulder settlers.

Tax and land records have been excellent sources of information for this project. Tax assessors were charged with counting household items like pianos and violins during home visits to determine which were part of the official calculations of how much a resident owed in taxes. Things like a "pleasure carriage" were taxable, but not a regular old common wagon.

Thanks to Carson's deep digging, attendees of the lecture will hear remarkable stories including the one about the Yankee Murder Trial – a dramatic legal and literal chase that begins with a killing in Montezuma, Colorado, and culminates in the nation's attention being drawn to Boulder.

For those who are curious about how far back their own Boulder County legacy may go, Carson has set up a pioneer tree on Ancestry.com. Years after the inception of the study, Carson is still hard at work organizing the data. She sets a daily goal for herself of about 15 minutes every day to stay connected with the information by indexing data and literally keeping her fingers on the pulse of this particular time in history.

All of Carson's amazing work in this area is not funded in any way. "It's my interest, it's my hobby," she said.

An author of more than ninety annotated indexes of Boulder County source materials, Carson gives lectures to genealogical societies across Colorado. She is the author of 10 books about genealogy and about publishing, including, "Publish Your Family History: A Step-by-Step Guide for Writing the Stories of Your Ancestors," and two new books, "Map Your U.S. Research: A Workbook for Genealogists" and "Colorado's' Historical Assets: A Research Guide for Genealogists, Local Historians, and History Buffs."

"If your family has been in the Boulder area for a long time," Carson said, "come and hear the stories, but also learn how to research your family." This talk will finish with what Carson has dubbed some "Terrifically Tough Territorial Trivia."

Dina Carson's lecture will be held at the Left Hand Grange located at 195 Second Avenue, Niwot, on Wednesday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m., doors open at 6:30 pm. Admission is free for Niwot Historical Society members, $5 for general admission. For more information about the Niwot Historical Society, visit https://niwothistoricalsociety.org/.