Wyoming Cultural Groups

Wyoming Ethnic Groups
Information on ethnic ancestors may be found in most of the same records as other groups. Start your research in the same resources you would search for non-ethnic ancestors.

Records and histories of minorities and ethnic groups may provide additional clues to immigrant origins, migration information and previous residences. See United States Minorities for further sources on ethnic, racial, and religious groups.

The majority of Wyoming residents are of northern European descent.

African Americans
See African American Resources for Wyoming.

Finns
A sizable number of Finns came to work the mines in Uinta and Sweetwater counties in the late 1880s. In 1895, a group of about 600 settlers came from Iowa and Illinois to homestead reclaimed land at a place now called Emblem.

Hispanic Americans
There are a few Hispanic groups that have settled around Rock Springs and Cheyenne.

Indigenous People
Many Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Shoshoni Indians live on the Wind River Reservation of west-central Wyoming (see Indigenous Peoples of Wyoming).

There is an entire chapter in volume one of the History of Wyoming which summarizes the history of Wyoming Indians beginning page 59. ( Bartlett, Ichabod S. History of Wyoming. Three Volumes. Chicago, Illinois: S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1918. All three volumes of this book may be read online through the link to volume one for this publication at the FamilySearch Catalog.

Italians
There are small numbers of Italians that settled in Rock Springs.

Irish
Many Irish and Mexican laborers and Civil War veterans helped build the railway. Settlers from the Midwest followed the railroad into Wyoming, and built Cheyenne, Laramie, and other towns along the route.

Wyoming Political Groups
The women's sufferage movement gained considerable attention of the nation from the late 1860's through statehood. The history of this movement gives background to the lives of women living in Wyoming during this period.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Many Idaho Latter-day Saints came into Star Valley in the 1870s and 1880s. There were Latter-day Saint colonists in the Big Horn Basin by 1895, but the main body of Latter-day Saint settlers came there as an organized group from Utah and Idaho in 1900. A helpful source of information on these settlers in the Big Horn Basin is:

Welch, Charles A. History of the Big Horn Basin. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News Press, 1940. (Family History Library ).