More 1894 MI Census Online

For those of you who saw my post about Seeking Michigan uploading images of the Michigan 1894 census, I have good news.  There are now images for at least 22 counties available.  They are as follows:  Barry, Bay, Hillsdale, Ingham, Iosco, Jackson, Lapeer, Lenawee, Kalamazoo, Kent, Keweenaw, Menomenee, Midland, Montcalm, Muskegon, Newaygo, Ottawa, Roscommon, Sanilac, St. Clair, St. Joseph and Wayne.

It is possible that other counties are also searchable.  To determine which county's images had been uploaded I searched for the surnames Smith and Brown, hoping that there was at least one person in each county with one of these all too common names.  If you are searching for someone in a sparsely populated Upper Peninsula county, for example, it may be worth checking in case no one there bears the Smith or Brown moniker.

Images for Washtenaw county were briefly available, but were hopelessly blurred such that they were completely unreadable.  Washtenaw county no longer appears in the search results so I hope that means the problem was detected and is being addressed. 

You can start your search on the 1884-1894 Census page to see the images that are available.

Update:  April 2013.  Seeking Michigan is currently adding census images between 1827 and 1874.  To see what records we can look forward to see my post.  

Seeking Michigan's Census Secret

Seeking Michigan is slowly adding images for the 1894 Michigan state census to its website. A month or so ago I was reviewing the changes made to the website that make browsing documents so much easier, when I first noticed it.  At first they didn't have a  page on their website that mentioned these census records, but they do now (as of April 2013).

Upon making the discovery a search for “smith” only yielded results for two counties. When I checked again this week images for nine counties turned up. Those counties are: Bay, Ingham, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent, Newaygo, Ottawa, Roscommon and St. Joseph. Clearly images are not being added alphabetically by county. That's bad news for those with relations in Branch or Cass counties, but potentially good for those with kin in Van Buren county because we may not need to wait until the end of the process to get that information.

I know that a transcription of the 1894 census is available at Family Search, but not all of the information from the census is included. Besides, if the name was difficult to read it could have been transcribed incorrectly and you would have no chance to find it. Speaking of transcribing, I don't know where the Seeking Michigan transcription came from, but it evidently did not come from FamilySearch because at least three of my households showed up under a surname spelled differently than on FamilySearch. And for those paying attention to the discussion of whether the Federal 1940 census indexers at Ancestry.com or FamilySearch did a better job, the FamilySearch index of the 1894 Michigan census spelled the names correctly, but SeekingMichigan did not.

The good news is that the 1894 Michigan census index at Seeking Michigan is an every-name index. The bad news is that it only pulls out exact matches. To find my “missing” families I had to search by first name and county and then manually examine each record. If you do need to search by first name try one that is uncommon to decrease the number of hits (e.g. Henry yields many more results than Tina).

To start finding your people select “Advanced Search” underneath the main search bar at the top of any Seeking Michigan page. Enter the person's name in one box and possibly the county name in the other box. Be sure to uncheck the Death Records box at the top of the list and select Michigan State Census Records at the very bottom. Once the list of results appears, don't let the name in the far right column deter you from clicking on an image. As far as I can determine, the name is randomly chosen from somewhere on the page. If you know what township your ancestors are in you can narrow your search that way. Otherwise, just dig in and examine each page, though you won't have to decipher the handwriting. Simply scroll down under the image to see a list of the transcribed names. Unless the name has been hopelessly mangled, you should be able to find it readily. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to go to the next or a previous image so if your family is split over two pages you'll have to search again. And no, searching for the surname spelling found on one page does not necessarily pull up the missing image (sigh).

Once you have found you family, be sure to note that half of the information is located at the top of the image while the remainder can be found at the bottom. Several useful questions include 1) how many children a woman gave birth to, 2) how many of those children are living, 3) how many years a person has lived in the US and 4) how many years they have lived in Michigan.

I have already found a couple of interesting things about some of my Kalamazoo families. Now I will be impatiently waiting for other Michigan counties to make their debut. I'll keep you posted on the progress of this project.

To see exactly which counties/years are now available go to the 1884-1894 Census Page.

As of April 2013, Seeking Michigan is also adding early census images (1827-1874).  To see what counties and years we can expect to see records for see my post.

I Love FamilySearch

I thought everyone knew about the wonderful, free information available at FamilySearch.org until I was listening (if I recall correctly) to an episode of the Genealogy Gems podcast last summer. Lisa Louise Cooke met someone who had never heard of it. At least, that's what I remember hearing. I was so hung up on the fact that this person had never heard of the site that it took me several seconds before I realized that the conversation had continued.

So, for anyone out there who is unfamiliar with the free resources at FamilySearch.org let me just say that you are about to discover your new best friend. And did I mention that everything on the site is free? For those of you aware of the site, check back periodically because records are always being added or updated.

There are currently ten record collections specific for Michigan, though they fall into five categories: births, marriages, deaths, Detroit arrival manifests and the 1894 Michigan census (a transcription, but now you can look for the images at Seeking Michigan.  Click here for more information.). A few of the record sets have been updated in the last several months. If there is a camera icon to the left of the title it means an image of the actual record is available. All others are transcriptions.

Whenever I visit the site I usually go the bottom of the home page where it says “Browse by Location.” I click on “United States” so I can scan down the list of all record collections to see what is new or updated for the states where my people lived. Some of the newer collections added may not be searchable by surname so you will have to browse if you can't bear the wait until it has been indexed. If you really can't stand it you can become a volunteer indexer and select the collections you would like to assist with. The more of us who help, the faster the 1940 census will be indexed.

Even if your people didn't live in states toward the end of the alphabet, keep scrolling so you don't miss the United States collections. In addition to federal census records, there are many military records, mostly but not exclusively from the Civil War.

You never know what you might find next. One day I noticed there were death records from Pittsburgh, PA. I found one of my people unequivocally and I found three more records that I believe to be my people (all of the pieces fit). I did the happy dance. My husband rolled his eyes while the cat just rolled over.

As I mentioned, you too can become a Family Search indexer. While many of us are busily working on the 1940 US census, there are many other projects just waiting for indexers. Each batch shouldn't take too long to complete. In the case of the 1940 census, one page is one batch. All an indexer needs to do is key the information into the blank sheet provided. Each record is indexed twice with an arbitrator brought in to reconcile any differences. I know we are all busy, but if enough people index one or two batches per week we can make a difference. To sign up go to: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/indexing/indexing.asp.

As of June 1, 2012, Michigan was 24% indexed. I did a couple of batches from Kalamazoo county last night!