The Sidney Roper Weisiger Papers is a collection of notes, photographs, manuscripts for published articles, correspondence, and other miscellany produced by the lifetime research of local historian, Sidney R. Weisiger. The Weisiger collection, in terms of archives, is a combination of materials. Much of it is composed of his own research notes, correspondence, speeches, and records of his own involvement with historical and genealogical organization. This about half the collection. The other part is materials that he collected from various sources, and includes court records, correspondence of local people, records of businesses, photographs, brochures, maps, and many other assorted items.
An inventory of the collection was prepared in the early 1980's and published as:
Descriptive Study of the Sidney Roper Weisiger Local History Collection by Vera B. Johnson. Thesis (M.A.) - University of Houston-Victoria, 1983.
The Weisiger Collection is organized as close to the original arrangement as possible. No attempt has been made to separate by types of material; but to organize everything by subject regardless of form. The collection falls into several distinct components:
The transcriptions in the cemetery record files linked below have been drawn from several source files within the Weisiger collection: A folder titled "Cemeteries" and filed as Folder 41, Box 3. This folder includes drawings, plans, maps and working papers. A personal name file housed in a wooden file cabinet. This file consists of individual index cards, alphabetized by name of the deceased, and include birth and death date, and the name of the cemetery where the gravesite is located. Two notebooks containing working papers from which, it is believed, the personal name file described above was created. A personal name file housed in a metal file cabinet, containing research notes on these and other cemeteries and names of deceased.
The Fimble File of Newspaper Clippings is a collection of three scrapbooks containing obituary notices and other clippings from the Victoria Advocate and other area newspapers. The 3 scrapbooks cover the period from 1901 to about 1944. Sidney Weisiger acquired the scrapbooks from a local re-sale shop. He spent many hours indexing every name mentioned in every clipped article. The original index has been transcribed and enhanced by VRHC staff and is available here for searching. In the search box below, type the name of the person you wish to search. Consider alternate spellings, i.e. Alnoch and Allnoch, or Lorenso and Lorenzo. You may also truncate the name, for example, typing "Ander" will retrieve listings for Anderson or Andersen.
This index has been migrated into our Manuscripts Portal
Researchers may view the inventory directly Fimble Files Inventory. Names, dates, and any notes from the collections are accessible in the inventory.
The photographs in the Weisiger collection were approximately 1,175 photographs. Mors of them were taken by Mr. Weisiger; some, however, are too old to have been taken by him and were likely acquired from other sources. He photographed local landmarks, especially those being demolished. The photographs have been indexed in the Historic Photograph Collection and can be searched there using the keyword "weisiger".
