Kentucky Cultural Groups

United States   Kentucky    Minorities

Records and histories of minorities and ethnic groups may provide clues to immigrant origins, migration information, and previous residences. For the most part, research on minorities consists of consulting the same types of records as research for non-minorities. The purpose of this section is to identify a few of those special sources that influence research on minority families in Kentucky.

Some records, histories, and periodicals of Germans, Jews, African-Americans, Poles, Shakers, Huguenots and Walloons, and others are available at the Family History Library. For example:


 * Smith, Clifford Neal. Early Nineteenth-Century German Settlers in Ohio (Mainly Cincinnati and Environs,) Kentucky, and Other States. McNeal, Arizona: Westland Publications, 1984. . This book contains abstracts of obituaries, membership records, and articles from the monthly German magazine Der Deutsche Pioniere (The German Pioneer). It includes an index and lists the name of the settler, his or her place of residence and origin, and the reference volume and page number.
 * Haiman, Miecislaus. Polish Pioneers of Virginia and Kentucky. 1937. Reprint, [Ft. Wayne, Indiana: Allen County Public Library, 198–]. . This book includes notes on the genealogies of Polish families, including the Sadowski family. It is unindexed.
 * Neal, Julia. The Kentucky Shakers. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1977 . This history of the Shakers from 1805 to 1922 is unindexed.
 * Original Papers Concerning the Huguenot and Walloon Lines. Frankfort, KY: Historical Society, [196–?]. (Family History Library .) About half of the early pioneers of Kentucky were descended from French-speaking Protestants, including the Huguenots from southern France and the Walloons from southern Belgium. These unindexed papers contain the history of these two groups of people.