VOICES, KANCOLL'S ONLINE MAGAZINE
blue divider line



Kansas Gateway:  History at your fingertips



What there was a website you could go to that would have links to great Kansas websites, neatly organized all on one page, with links to pages that explained a little bit about each one? What if this website also featured short articles about Kansas, interesting photographs, and news about Kansas-related websites? And what if, in addition to that, this website explained how you can subscribe to Internet mailing lists about Kansas life, history and genealogy, so you could learn even more?

Then you'd probably find yourself looking at Kansas Gateway, the newest website founded by Lynn Nelson.

Lynn has a habit of doing that ... establishing websites and then enabling other folks to take over and develop them. In fact, the websites created through Lynn's support are collectively known at the Heritage group. And Lynn had an idea that a website which served as a gateway to all of these other sites would be a great way to become acquainted with all the members of the Heritage group.

For that task, he tapped the services of Dick Taylor, KanColl Director. Working with Lynn, Dick has created a quick-loading page which provides a list of the various Heritage group sites on the left hand side of the page, and features a brief article or a striking photograph (changing periodically) on the other side. If you click on one of the links on the left side, you go to a page which explains a little more about that site and provides a sampler of pages found there.

What are the Heritage group websites? Glad you asked! The websites include:

KanColl: you already know about our online magazine, and hopefully have visited our other pages, providing books, articles, photographs, postcards, letters, diaries and other items related to Kansas life and history.

Kansas Heritage Server: managed by Steve Chinn, this website provides information about subjects such as the Old West, soldiers, Indians, cowboys, gunfighters, trails, railroads, towns, schoolhouses, and learning more about your ancestors.

Kansas Community Networks: a group of sites representing various communities around the state and showing what's happening now.

Kansas Sights: managed by Nancy Sween, this website offers a variety of Kansas links, history articles, maps, views -- you can even send on electronic postcard.

Other Heritage group websites include the Interactive Santa Fe Trail and Kansas Interactive Genealogy, both managed by Nancy Sween; Don B. Dale's Source List for Genealogy Research; and Kansas Surnames, now maintained by Connie Snyder and John Maier.

Since Lynn's interests go far beyond Kansas, you'll also find some other websites in the Heritage group whose subjects fall outside Kansas borders. Lynn's WWW-VL History Index is a comprehensive list of links to history sites for different eras, supported by an international group of historians and others. Carrie, a full-text electronic library managed by Kendall Simmons, has an extensive catalog of digital texts from many countries in a range of literary periods.

As you can see, Kansas Gateway puts a wealth of historical information at your disposal. You might even find it so useful you'd want to make it the home page in your browser. If so, we've provided information on how easy it is to do that here -- so you can always have history at your fingertips!


Kansas Gateway logo divider

Voices 'Contents'