Nancy Calhoun Bio

Nancy Calhoun has been chasing relatives for over 40 years. Nancy’s genealogy journey began at her grandfather’s knee as he told stories of his family in southwest Virginia where they settled before the Revolutionary War.

 

While in the Teacher Corps and graduate school in Kansas, she enrolled in a semester long genealogy class and has been pursuing family, both her own and others’, since that time. She found it to be a perfect combination with her bachelor degrees in history, English and even vocational home economics with a minor in photography, and a masters in curriculum and instruction. With a background in teaching and 20 years in newspaper work and publishing, she often used her research skills in the classroom and in writing.

 

Nancy is currently a librarian in the OHS Research Library and formerly the Department Head of Genealogy and Local History at Muskogee Public Library in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She has attended several NGS and FGS national conferences, in addition to many area educational opportunities. She was the recipient of the librarian scholarship to attend IGHR and the Richard S. Lackey Memorial Scholarship for the 2017 session of Genealogical Institute on Federal Records. Her writings have placed in the annual contests held by the International Association of Family History Writers and Editors.

 

She has been a member of OGS since the 1990s. Her first workshop was the one featuring Dr. George Schweitzer. Other memberships include APG, NGS, Daughters of the American Revolution, the United Daughters of the War of 1812, Daughters of the Confederacy, Oklahoma’s First Families of the Twin Territories, First Families of Wythe County, Virginia, and several county and state genealogical organizations. She is currently the president of Muskogee County Genealogical Society. Speaking opportunities take her all over northeastern Oklahoma and even Arkansas, other areas of Oklahoma, and into Texas.

 

Her personal research includes Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Texas, as well as Oklahoma. She grew up in southwestern Oklahoma in the Ninnekah area where her family has been involved in agriculture and education for over 100 years since her grandparents brought her father as a newborn to the brand new state in 1909. Her maternal lines came from Tennessee and Kentucky to Texas before making the move to Indian Territory.