Digital Humanities Symposium

Can I Get a Witness?: Network Analysis of Nebraskan Homesteaders

In 2014, Fold3.com, a subsidiary of Ancestry.com, finished digitizing over 75,000 records of successful homestead claims for the state of Nebraska. In 2009, Richard Edwards called for a reassessment of homesteading in “Changing Perceptions of Homesteading as a Policy of Public Domain Disposal,” arguing that scholars need to approach homesteading through data analysis rather than anecdotal evidence (however compelling it tends to be). Using the newly digitized records, I sampled ten townships over two counties to thoroughly examine and document every homestead claimant, creating the most sustained study of homesteaders to date. While data sets are great, it’s what we do with data that makes it important. I used Gephi to map the social connections of homesteaders based on the four witnesses each homesteader listed in their Proof of Posting, essentially a newspaper blurb announcing their intention to “prove up.” Network analysis of these known connections indicates the prevalence of fraud (spoiler alert: it’s not as much as previous scholars have led us to believe) and accentuates both incidental and intentional ethnic community formation. Geolocation of the homesteaders further reveals patterns of witnessing that demonstrate the function neighborhoods in the rural west. Ultimately, this project merges qualitative methodologies with close-readings of the documents to produce ground-breaking research on homesteading in Nebraska.