Center for Ethnic Studies

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The Center for Ethnic Studies houses certain materials that directly relate to the peoples who settled central and western Kansas and their cultures. Materials include pamphlets, journals, monographs, maps, general, family, and church histories (including baptismal records, obituaries, ship manifests, censuses, and family genealogies), photograph collections, and video and audio recordings of folk music and oral histories.

Collection Strengths

Volga German Heritage
- As the Volga German Society of Rush and Ellis Counties, the Bukovina Society of the Americas, and local figures like genealogist Kevin Rupp and the late folklorist Lawrence Weigel all played integral roles in developing the Center through donations of resource materials and monies, many of the Center's holdings focus on the histories of German families from Eastern Europe who immigrated to the area in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
European Immigrant Communities
- The Center also contains materials pertaining to other European immigrant communities such as the Czech and Scandinavians
Black Homesteaders
- Including artifacts about Nicodemus, Kansas, the center houses historical information about Black homesteaders settling in the Great Plains.

Research Tips

Search the Forsyth Library Catalog. Begin by searching keywords for your research topic. From the results list, use the right sidebar to filter results under the “Location” heading to show only locations designated with “Special Collections - Great Plains - Center for Ethnic Studies” or "Special Collections - Rare Books - Center for Ethnic Studies."
A Guide to the Collections (a bibliography of the Center for Ethnic Studies) created in 1997 by Dr. Helmut Schmeller has been updated with new items added to the collection since that time.
A bibliography of genealogical materials for Hays and Ellis County is available in the Special Collections room and the Center for Ethnic Studies. Initially compiled in 1999, it was last updated in 2016.
As a FamilySearch affiliate library, Forsyth Library also offers limited access to FamilySearch databases from the library computers.
The Hays Convention and Visitors Bureau is also available to help with your inquiries about the Volga German heritage of the area. You may contact them at info@haysusa.com
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Exhibitions and Featured Digital Content

Forsyth Library's exhibition program includes both site-based and online exhibitions. Additionally, select materials from the Forsyth Library Special Collections have been digitized and housed in its Digital Collections.