Subject Guides & Tutorials: Wyoming Brand Research: Research: Step Two

Check the State Brand Registers

The next step is to establish the time frame the brand was registered. Researchers should review the state brand books published by the Wyoming State Livestock Board.

What are these?

These books list brands in Wyoming that were active in a particular year.

What information do they contain?

Each entry provides the name of the brand owner, place of residence, and description of the brand.

Where do I find them?

The Wyoming State Archives has volumes for various years from 1882 to 2009. They are located in its historical library under call number 636 W992w.
The Wyoming Livestock Board should have a complete set dating from 1919 to the present. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association created brand books for its members. Many of these can be viewed online at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming. The Wyoming State Archives has Stock Growers brand books for the years 1882, 1883, and 1885.

How do I use them?

There is no rhyme or reason for the order of brands in the early Stock Growers brand books. By the 1900s, the books are organized alphabetically by county. Under each county there is random lists of brands and brand owners.
The state brand books are organized by brand – alphabetical, numerical, geometric forms, etc. For alphabetical and numerical brands, the books are easy to use. Finding abstract figures can be somewhat challenging. The Wyoming Livestock Board has developed a procedure for organizing every volume consistently. For ready reference there is an index by brand owner in the back.

The Wyoming Brand Book, 1916

The Wyoming Brand Book, 1916 Name Index

In this brand research example we are using Eleanor's email from Step One as the jumping off point. We take the information from the email, specifically the name D.T. Cosgrove and the early 1900s time period. Then we find a Wyoming Brand Book. Today we choose the one from 1916 because it is in the estimated time period of early 1900s. We flip to the index at the back of the book looking for D.T. Cosgrove.

Voila, we found D.T. Cosgrove in the name index and find the page number he is listed under, page 45.

If we did not find D.T. Cosgrove in the 1916 book we would check other books both later and earlier until we found him.

The Wyoming Brand Book, 1916 pg. 45

On page number 45 we discover the brand, it looks the way Eleanor described it! We also match more information like the location of D.T. Cosgrove's ranch, Wheatland. Most importantly we established that in 1916 D.T. Cosgrove did in fact own the brand we are searching for. Remember the 1916 date, fellow researchers!

Sometimes a researcher will find the name they need, and the ranch they need, but the brand is different. This is when we check other books earlier or later to match the information we received from the initial request.