Colorado Biography

Biographies in Local Histories

 * Biographical information is often found in state, county, and town histories.
 * Towards the end of the 19th century, began publishers soliciting short biographical/family histories from local founding families, offering to publish them in an upcoming local history. This then became an incentive for family members to buy a copy of the book.
 * Families represented were not necessarily prominent. Practically everyone living there, especially in the Midwest, counted as an early settler.
 * These biographies often start with the first member of the family to settle in the area, and detail their descendants at the time of publishing. They may tell where the family moved in from. Children's marriages often are given, with maiden names included.

Finding Biographies

 * The county Wiki page lists several county histories. It also lists local libraries, and societies which probably have copies of local histories.
 * Many histories are no longer under copyright and can be found in the following online, digitized book collections. Search with keywords "History" and "the name of your locality" (state, county, or town).
 * FamilySearch Books
 * Google Books
 * World Cat
 * HathiTrust
 * Internet Archive
 * The FamilySearch library has extensive collections of these local histories. Many are digitized. Search the FamilySearch Catalog under your locality for the topics "Biography" and "History".

Online Resources

 * Encyclopedia of biography of Colorado: history of Colorado ($)
 * County and Town Histories, with biographies.
 * Representative men of Colorado in the nineteenth century, e-book
 * Representative women of Colorado, e-book
 * Progressive men of western Colorado e-book
 * Portrait and biographical record of the state of Colorado, pt. 1, e-book, and pt. 2

The best collection of published biographies in Colorado is at the Colorado Historical Society. They also have a biographical vertical file and the Bromwell Index (Family History Library ), which is a five-volume alphabetical list of prominent people in Colorado up to 1933.

Two representative biographical encyclopedias are:

Stone, Wilbur Fiske. History of Colorado. Four Volumes. Chicago, Illinois: S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1918-19. (Family History Library .) Volumes 2-4 contain biographies.

Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado. . . . Two Volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Chapman Publishing Company, 1899. (Family History Library .)

Other Resources


 * Mardos Memorial Library, Colorado Selections
 * Colorado State Archives, Colorado Biographies
 * State Biographies, Colorado from GeneaSearch