For a long lifetime, the railroad was the biggest thing in Nebraska — the industry that built the towns, moved the crops, and employed a small army of workers. If your family lived along a rail line, there is a good chance the railroad is part of their story.
The people in this story fill our public-record database. Search a surname and filter to Nebraska.
Search Nebraska records →The lines that built Nebraska
Nebraska’s growth rode the rails. The major lines across the state included the Union Pacific and the Burlington. The Union Pacific began the transcontinental railroad at Omaha in 1865 and made the city its headquarters.
Railroad towns
Whole towns grew up around the division points, roundhouses, and repair shops — places like Omaha, Grand Island, and North Platte. A railroad job — brakeman, fireman, engineer, section hand, shopman — supported thousands of Nebraska families, and the depot was the center of town life.
The boom era
The great building period ran through the 1860s through the 1880s, when track spread across the state and tied farm and factory to national markets. The railroad decided which towns thrived and which withered, and its coming is written all through the census and land records of the era.
Finding your Nebraska ancestors
- Railroad occupations in the census — brakeman, fireman, engineer, conductor, section hand, shopman — point straight to a rail family.
- Census records (free through 1950) list occupation and residence — placing your family in a specific Nebraska county and town, decade by decade.
- Death & cemetery records — search our Nebraska database for the people in this story and the generations around them.
- The History Nebraska (Nebraska State Historical Society) in Lincoln holds the deeper collections — company, church, military, and county records.
- Newspapers on the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America carried the obituaries, accidents, and milestones of these communities.
We work back from you to the ancestor who lived this history — census, vital, church, and cemetery records, written into a book and an interactive family site. Flat rate, no DNA test.
See how it works →Frequently asked questions
Which railroads ran through Nebraska?
The main lines across Nebraska included the Union Pacific and the Burlington
How do I find a railroad-worker ancestor in Nebraska?
Look for railroad occupations in the census (brakeman, fireman, engineer, section hand, shopman), then check company and union records and the state historical society’s railroad collections.