Welcome to KinSource!

My name is Kathryn Kelly and I am the creator of KinSource.

How did KinSource start?

KinSource's roots (no pun intended!) started with my interest in researching my own family. Since my family came to Minnesota early in its history, I spent much time digging up information from various Minnesota records. Due to my location in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, I had ready access to many of these records. But, as I searched, I realized how difficult it was to access some resources. And even if a person can access these resources, some are not very easy to use; you can spend hours trying to find families, sometimes with no success, just because it is too labor and time intensive. My experiences included times when my eyes would glaze over and I realized that I really didn't look at those last two pages of microfilm, and now I had to back track and look at them again!. Plus, I watched one day as a woman went through page after page in the 1885 Minnesota Census in St. Paul looking for an ancestor in vain. She never found him even though he was probably there!

The first step!

So, I decided that I had an opportunity to help, and I took the first step towards my venture into creating useful resources! I started on a plan to make the 1885 Minnesota Census easier to access and use. Since the hardest areas to search were St. Paul and Minneapolis, I started to transcribe records of the people in these cities into a searchable database. My initial intent was to sell the material via CD-ROM, but the database took several years to create, thus allowing the World Wide Web to come to the forefront as a better medium to offer the information for sale.

The web site emerges!

While I was working on the transcriptions for Minneapolis and St. Paul, I decided to start the KinSource web site with free resources that I have used. These resources will, hopefully, help you in your Minnesota research.

And, the culmination of my original idea!

I am proud to offer a subscription service to the KinSource web site. It provides access to my 1885 Minnesota Census database which include all residents of the State of Minnesota. I have also added my 1875 Minnesota Census database and a database containing several Minnesota City Directories.

The Future?

I will continue to add free and subscription resources to the site over time, with a current emphasis on adding transcriptions for the Minnesota Censuses and City Directories. And, I wlll also be looking for further resources to add that are not easily accessible. So, please keep coming back!

Also, in 2009, I started a new web-site, SarongsEtc.com, I hope you will take a look!

And, good luck in your searching!!

Kathryn Kelly
KinSource
1705A Fulham St.
St. Paul, Mn. 55113