Cheryl Creeger, Rock County Historical Society volunteer, files through one of the cabinets that holds obituaries of people with Rock County ties. By Sara StrongResearching family history has become an increasingly popular hobby in the last decade. Along with that, comes an increasing number of queries to the Rock County Historical Society.People want to know where their great-grandfather was buried; what church their uncle attended; the name of their grandma’s sister.Cheryl Creeger takes on much of the work of researching for budding genealogists who can’t get to the museum, or other local sources.She is one of a few volunteers at the Historical Museum who helps record names, dates and facts from the county. When people call for specific information, she’s the one who will find what other volunteers have helped to catalogue."I just like to do this," Creeger said. "And everybody should volunteer for something, right?"Of course, Creeger doesn’t work alone. Just Tuesday afternoon, regular Historical Society volunteers Lee Alexander, Eileen Kopp and Betty Mann were busy cataloguing historical tidbits to fit into categories such as school, church, township and sports.That’s a big undertaking, but worth it, especially when people are researching their roots."The newspaper is our biggest resource," Creeger said.She likes the process of investigating, peeking through files and trying to verify facts. Volunteers have been cataloging obituaries for years, and still haven’t caught up to the volumes of paper stored in the museum.Obituaries are so helpful because of the birth and death dates, the family members listed and the interesting facts about people that the Rock County Star Herald includes in its obits. They often list professional and church involvements as well as special personal hobbies.The first volunteers who saved obituaries didn’t consistently put dates of publication on the files, but Creeger is usually able to find the correct date and verify it with old issues of the paper."It’s amazing the amount of what we have done, and we haven’t even gone through some of it," Creeger said.Some parts of recording history can be tedious. Early newspapers listed small death notices and large obituaries — sometimes on the front page, sometimes in the "weekly visitor" columns that listed social happenings in the county. That means Historical Society volunteers have to read entire papers to find the obituaries, which are more clearly labeled in modern papers.But Creeger doesn’t mind that part of her job much. She’s liked history since she was a child, remembering that she loved looking at her grandmother’s photo album years before most children were interested in that.Her personal family ties to Rock County are strong. Her great-grandfather, Ole Hansen, was an early settler. Creeger’s husband, Randy, first had family come to the county in the 1920s.Although the system at the Historical Society is cumbersome, the volunteers do what they can in the time they can afford — Tuesday Creeger was paging through the 1934 newspapers and writing in a spiral notebook names of people and dates of the obit publication. The information can later be put into a computer program, organized by date and alphabetized names.The local newspaper isn’t the only valuable resource for Creeger. If people were born or died in the county, the courthouse has reference material on them, and sometimes a trip to a cemetery can provide information that wasn’t recorded elsewhere.In fact, just this weekend, while Creeger was observing Memorial Day, a familiar name caught her eye on a tombstone. Someone had asked for information, and Creeger had been unsuccessful in finding it until she got a date off the tombstone."Being lucky helps a lot," Creeger said. "Lots of little accidents happen that help."In the cases where Creeger can’t help people immediately, she keeps their names and contact information available and lets them know when she finds something.Besides being personally interested in history, Creeger said the volunteer work is fulfilling in other ways. She said, "Most people who get information are ecstatic and that’s what I really like." Even though the Historical Society has become a source for genealogical research, the museum is also there for regular viewing of local historical displays. Annually, it sees about 350 to 400 visitors. The museum opens next week for the summer from 2 to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
