Five generations ago, a couple left Iowa and came to Barton County. They came to farm. They came to set down roots. They came to build a family, which they did.
Elisha and Mary Dugan came here from Taylor County, Iowa, settling in the Hoisington area.
They lived here and died here.
Recently, their great-granddaughter contacted the Barton County Records Department to see if she could fill in some of the holes in her family history, and that led the county staff to find out about the Dugans.
According to Records Department Manager Amy Miller, they were able to find quite a bit.
“Betty Hughes, from Iowa, requested information on Elisha and Mary Dugan who were her great-great grandparents.
“They came to farm in Barton County from Taylor County, Iowa and settled around the Hoisington area. 
“Records staff found cemetery records for Elisha and Mary were buried in the Wilson Cemetery. 
“In addition, staff found an abstract of death for Mary, which showed that she died at her daughter’s home,” Miller reported.
And that was just the results of one interesting search.
The records staff did a lot more, Miller added.
In the past month, they “had 183 visitors call, write, e-mail or walk in from Kansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, and Indiana. There were 294 requests for probates, marriage licenses, death and cemetery records, birth records, civil, divorce, criminal, traffic, limited, small claims, and Census records.
“Department personnel updated the cemetery records of burials, quit claims, lot deeds and markers for Hillcrest and Golden Belt cemeteries for the month of February.
The staff also kept up with regular duties for keeping current county records, Miller noted.
“Records from the County Treasurer’s Office and the County Clerk’s Office were registered and moved into the North Records Storage Room.
“Records staff completed the filming of 1982 through 1999 limited supplement files and filmed 1999 criminal files.  “Staff also indexed the 1999 small claims cases. They numbered 161 files with 1,946 documents. The oil companies continue to request information from probates. 
“We had our usual number of requests for marriage licenses for Social Security and insurance purposes.”