Lane County, Oregon GenWeb

Lane County was created on January 28, 1851 by the Oregon Territorial Legislature from the original Yamhill District. Her neighboring counties are:

Lincoln County to the northwest, on the coast.
Benton County to the northwest.
Linn County to the north.
Deschutes County to the east.
Klamath County to the southeast.
Douglas County to the south.

Lane County was named for General Joseph Lane, the first Territorial Governor of Oregon.
More information about the history
of the county and short biographies of some of its original settlers are available.

Be sure to read the history of the William Walker family submitted by Margaret Summitt!
Her article was originally published in the book Full of Life Now:
A History of the Eugene Masonic Cemetery and she has graciously given her permission for its reproduction here.

Also visit
American Local History Network,
a beautiful collection of web pages with many links about early Oregon.
On its pages you will find biographies of all of the governors of Oregon, descriptions of the area's Native American tribes,
and lots of information on the Oregon Trail and other trails the early settlers used to get here.

Be sure to check with these societies for upcoming classes!
The Cottage Grove Genealogy Society, in cooperation with Smith-Lund-Mills Funeral Chapel in Cottage Grove, has developed a search engine for interments.
To access it, click

There are many active historical museums.
The Lane County Historical Museum is located at the Lane County Fairgrounds, 740 West 13th Avenue in Eugene.
The Cottage Grove Museum is located across the street from the library of the Cottage Grove Genealogical Society on the corner of Birch and H. Only a few miles away is
the Creswell Area Historical Society Museum housed in the historic Methodist Episcopal Church at 55 North 5th Street in Creswell.
The Springfield Museum is at 590 Main Street in downtown Springfield.
The Dorris Ranch is also in Springfield, located at the intersection of South Second and Dorris Streets.
Florence is home to the Siuslaw Pioneer Museum at 85294 Hwy 101 South.

The Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson House at 303 Willamette Street in Eugene is beautifully restored.
The Lee House which houses theJunction City Historical Museum is found at 655 Holly Street and has also been restored to its former glory.
The Junction City Historical Society also has a helpful and informative site which includes a photograph of the "finest opera house between Seattle and San Francisco" built by 1891 pioneer James A. Bushnell.

The Hayden Bridge Victorian Home of Felix Scott, Jr. also represents a lovely and historic piece of Lane County's past. The biography of his father, one of the "Four Horsemen of Lane County," Captain Felix Scott, is fascinating reading. The Applegate Pioneer Museum is located at Seventh and Broadway in Veneta; call (541) 935-1836 for current hours and appointments.

Don't overlook the Oakridge-Westfir Pioneer Museum in Oakridge, located at 85291 Pine Street (between Main and Commercial Streets).

Lane County boasts an excellent public library system. The Eugene Public Library, the Siuslaw Public Library in Florence, and the other libraries listed here provide good sources of genealogical materials.

Now you can search all of the names posted on the Lane County ORGenWeb site!

Queries are useful in contacting other researchers who may be looking for members the same family you are. A query is simply a question about a person or people in a given place at a given time. The queries listed here all relate to events in Lane County. Click here to view existing queries To place a new query, please e-mail me through the mailbox below. If you put the words "Lane County GenWeb query" in the subject line, I won't accidently delete your message.

Click here to view a list of links to the personal home pages of researchers whose genealogies include the ancestors or descendants of Lane County residents. To have your personal home page added, please e-mail me through the mailbox below. Please put the words "Lane County GenWeb Link" in the subject line of your message.

Recent additions include Gene Martin Uttinger's Search for His Family Rootsand The Descendants of Isaac Thornton.

These pages are part of the USGenWeb Project.It is modeled after a project developed and organized by a group of genealogists in March and April, 1996. This group developed the Kentucky Comprehensive Genealogy Database to provide a single entry point and common storage for all counties in Kentucky. Because the databases are indexed and cross-linked, an individual found in more than one county can easily be located in the index. The group located volunteers to coordinate the collection of databases and generally oversee the contents of the web pages. In June, 1996, the project coordinators expanded the project to include all states. The Oregon GenWeb Project is an extension of the this effort. To add your data to the database, please contact the Lane County coordinator at the address below.

The USGenWeb is linked to all of the other states. From there, you can also access the WorldGenWeb pages. There are many other countries involved in this project and its related sites. More and more data is being added to through special activies, too, including the Census Project, the Lineage Project, the Military Records Project, and for our budding family historians, the Kidz Project. Details on these and other aspects of the USGenWeb are found on the home page.

Be sure to visit the companion sites, the Oregon GenWeb Archives and the Oregon Tombstone Transcription Project often as new data is added frequently. Information on those buried in several Lane County cemeteries is now available online thanks to the hard work of many people. Many thanks to Patti Kluchesky,Ryan Moser,D. Chatwood, Ada June Tolliver and Bonnie Turner for these contributions! Tami Dingle, Administrator of the Mulkey Cemetery in Eugene graciously provided her transcription of those burials. John Allinger submitted apartial abstraction of the 1900 Federal Census for the Five Rivers Precinct.

A list of known Lane County cemeteries and information on contacting volunteers to look up intermentsis available. Many thanks to William W. Reid who has transcribed the tombstone inscriptions for Walton Cemetery! Barbara Funkhas all of the cemetery records, 1860-present,for the Taylor-Lane Cemetery plus many obituaries from local newspapers. In addition to doing look-ups in many cemeteries,Shirley Nickelsonrecently transcribed a portion of the Linslaw (Old Linslaw, Old Pioneer) Cemetery for Cemetery Records Online

You may search the archived files for Lane County from here.

You may want to drop by our latest Lane County affiliate site,Welcome to the Lane Co., Oregon Biographies Project! Biographies Coordinator Jenny Tenlen is transcribing biographies of Lane County residents from a variety of sources in the public domain.

Check out the Lane County Oregon Mailing List! RootsWeb has many mailing lists by area and surname, including one just for Lane County research. The following links will help you get started.

This page is maintained by Dan Matney Please write if you have any questions or comments, if you wish to place a new query for your Lane County ancestor, or would like me to add a link to your home page.

Last revised Feb 20 2011 changes and additions are being made daily. Queries are updated separately.