We recently posted a couple of new items about MINNESOTA Poorhouses on our website called The POORHOUSE STORY (a clearinghouse for information about 19th century American poorhouses) at http://www.poorhousestory.com Well...so MANY of you wrote to us for information that we decided to spend a couple of days doing research. We found that the Minnesota Historical Society has poorhouse records for 16 (SIXTEEN!!!!) counties. They include: Beltrami, Blue Earth, Crow Wing, Goodhue, Hennepin, Houston, Kittson, Koochiching, Lyon, Redwood, Rice, St. Louis, Washington, Wilkin, Winona, and Yellow Medicine. Here is how you can find the information. When you go to the homepage (link above) click on POORHOUSES BY STATE, then on OTHER STATES, then on MINNESOTA on the table of states. When you get to the MINNESOTA page (click REFRESH on your browser if you have been to the site recently) ... scroll down to the Records section where you will find a yellow link that says: LIST of MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY POORHOUSE HOLDINGS by county. But the information does not stop there. When I started my website it was my hope that I could teach people how to search for poorhouse records and that they would then submit the information they found to The POORHOUSE STORY website ... which, as the subtitle indicates, is meant to be a clearinghouse. Unfortunately, more people have wanted me to give them a fish than have wanted to learn to fish. (Sigh) There are just too many counties in this country for me (even with the help of a handful of very dedicated volunteers) to do this research by myself. However, in Minnesota you are fortunate to have some excellent GenWeb and other sites on-line. So there is another page on our website ... the one you should consult if the MHS does NOT have holdings for the county in which you are interested. (You will find it linked off the page which lists the MHS holdings.) We invite you to USE it!!!! Let's go on a Treasure Hunt to see how many poorhouse records we can ... collectively ... locate in Minnesota. Your participation in this effort may help to preserve an important part of our genealogical history which is otherwise still at risk of being lost ... because people who have those records may not know of our interest in them. Thanks for your interest. Linda Crannell (aka=The Poorhouse Lady)