Research at NARA in DC

For those in the Kalamazoo area, the Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society is planning a bus trip to Washington, D.C. this September. For those of you who have never done research in DC, this is a great opportunity to look at some records only available there. The three repositories that are magnets for genealogists are the National Archives, the Library of Congress and the DAR Library.

Of the three, the only one I have not stepped foot in is the DAR Library. Unfortunately, I'm still looking for a relative who was involved in the Revolution. Maybe someday

While I haven't done research in the Library of Congress I have taken a tour of it. If you have never visited, let me tell you that it is beautiful inside! The architects who designed it wanted to demonstrate that Americans could build something in the classical style that compared to the great buildings of Europe. If you want a break from your research I recommend taking a guided tour of the LOC.

(Sonja Hunter, copyright 2001)

I have, however, done genealogical research in the National Archives. In fact, this is where I got my feet wet. This was back in the days when the only indexes to census records (1880-1920, for heads of household only) were soundex cards on microfilm. For everything else you had to guess where your ancestors lived and scroll through page by page and hope you got lucky.

It is probably needless to say that NARA has a large collection of records on microfilm in addition to the many paper records they house. The microfilm catalog is available online.

As I had only recently begun my genealogical journey when I was there I never delved into any but the most basic records. The notable exception was the Civil War pension application files (for Union soldiers) that I was fortunate enough to review. These records can provide a goldmine of information. Of the thirteen or so files I have looked at, probably 2/3 of them were thick files (over 100 pages). Yes, of course, there are many doctors' statements describing the ailments of the soldiers, but these records possess so much more. You will also find depositions from individuals who knew the soldier before his service to state that he was hale and hearty before the war. There are also depositions from the soldier describing how his ailments are linked to his service. Widows' pensions have even more information including death certificates, marriage certificates and birth records for minor children.

To view these records you will first need to obtain a NARA research ID card (and watch a short presentation on proper handling of records). You can register for your card in the microfilm reading room, a process that takes about 20 minutes. Card in hand, you then need to fill out a form containing information about the soldier whose file you wish to view (e.g. name, unit, application number). This information is found on pension application index cards that are now available at FamilySearch, Ancestry.com and Fold3. You can request several files in one pull and I would recommend this in case some files cannot be found. Retrieving your soldier's file usually requires several hours.

To peruse the files you will go to the reading room. To ensure that documents from NARA stay at NARA you are not allowed to bring in anything that could conceal original documents. Computers, loose notes and wallets are allowed. Blank paper and pencils are provided. Lockers to stow your other items (coats, purses, backpacks, etc.) are located down the hall and cost a quarter.  Be sure to see the specific regulations on what you can bring into the reading room.

Depending on how thick a file is and the type of information contained therein it may take a couple of hours to go through the file and make your copies. If you can refrain from reveling in touching documents your ancestor did and sort without getting sucked into the depositions you may be able to get through the records faster than I did. If you are running out of time you can return the file to the attendant and resume your perusal the following day.

Don't make the mistake that I did and be stingy about what you copy. When in doubt, make a copy. After all, you already paid for this trip. While you can obtain these records by mail it costs $75 for the complete file (up to 100 pages) and a per page rate beyond that. To make copies, leave your rolls of coins at home. Your researcher card doubles as a copy card. Machines to add money to your card are located within the research rooms. However, you may want to bring several denominations (or a credit card) because you cannot get a refund if you don't use all the money on your card. Copy prices are 25 cents for paper to paper and 50 cents for microfilm to paper.

Occasionally, the NARA staff is unable to locate a particular pension file. In this case, you may want to request the Compiled Military Service Record for that soldier. While these records usually do not contain very much information, they sometimes possess more than the standard fare. Don't get me wrong, these records are valuable, but knowing that an ancestor was present for duty in July of 1863 only tells so much, though it may help to determine if your ancestor was in a particular battle.

If you go on this trip, I hope you uncover all sorts of great information and if you're lucky, break down some brick walls as well.

Records at Seeking Michigan

I have seen the Seeking Michigan website on a couple of lists of the best state genealogy websites and with good reason. I have mentioned using the Seeking Michigan website to find death certificates (1897-1920), but there is much more to explore.  The Seeking Michigan website has recently been revised and it appears that they are still adding functionality.  To jump right in, you will find the search box at the upper right of the screen.  Select a category by checking the appropriate box.

When you go to the home page you will see several categories: Seek, Discover and Look, Teach and Buy. If you want to learn a little more about the collections hover over each category.  Seek allows you to select from guides (a list of links to holdings in various categories of the Archives of Michigan), indexes (for a few records) and contact information.  Look contains recent articles on various topics and a search box to locate more (e.g. the Kalamazoo Corset Co. or Malcolm X in Michigan).  Teach has information for K-12 teachers to help them introduce children to the past (e.g. using a pioneer child's account).  The Buy page is pretty self-explanatory.  Near the top of the page you can hover over and select from collections, prints and records.  Discover is where the bulk of the records on this site lie.

Hover over Discover and you can choose from civic history (death records, civil war service records, films and plat maps), family history (civil war manuscripts, civil war photographs, civil war battle flags, early photography, oral histories, music of Michigan, main streets and architecture), death records and civil war.  If you hover over the civil war option you can further select events, the reveille blog original material (the same ones you will find under civic and family history) and resources.  If you have ancestors who served in a Michigan unit during the Civil War a number of collections worth looking at, particularly. Most of these documents have not been indexed, meaning that if you are looking for references to a particular soldier you can't simply type his name into the search box and expect pages of hits. The philosophy was that researchers would rather have access to all of the documents right away rather than have only a few indexed ones. While it is a bit tedious to hunt page by page for your people, it is certainly better than having nothing to hunt through at all.

Some details of the different collections are as follows.  Civil War manuscripts (letters and diaries of soldiers), Civil War service records (monthly returns, muster rolls, etc sent to the Adjutant General), Civil War photographs, government land office plat maps (largely from the 1820s and 1830s), other varieties of maps (1841 to circa 1900), Main streets (old photographs and postcards from throughout Michigan), lighthouses, early Michigan documents and several other categories.

I am happy to report that thanks to the revision of the website, navigating and downloading documents is now straight-forward.  The quirks that made things difficult to find and save in their entirety are no longer issues.  To quickly show you how the new page is set up I'll look at the Civil War service record collection. In the search box, type in the unit you are interested in (I chose the “Lancers”). Click on a particular set of records from the results list.  Near the top of the screen you will see the document identifier (Box 132, Folder 3, Document 1, for example).  Immediately above the document is a slider you can use to increase the size of the image on your screen. You also have the option to "fit to window" or "fit to width."  You can also simply drag the edges of the box (right middle and/or bottom middle) to increase the size of the document window.  You can easily print or save (in one of three sizes) with a click of a button just above the document screen.  On the right hand side of the screen is a scroll down box containing thumbnails of all of the documents within that folder.  Clicking on “Next” will take you to the next document in the folder or you can simply click on the thumbnail.  When you have finished perusing all of the documents in the folder and wish to go to the next hit from the search results page, click the right arrow near the upper right of the screen where it indicates "Results, 1 of 3," for example. 

The Seeking Michigan website is now more user-friendly.  The records are now easy to navigate and save.  I wish to thank them for all of the time and effort it took to digitize the images so that those of us who can't visit in person can still access these records. I know how time consuming it is to scan in family photos and documents, having just finished a bunch in early March.  I hope they continue to receive funding to carry on this valuable work!

Note:  As of September 2012, Seeking Michigan has added 1894 Michigan state census records for nine counties to their website.  To learn more see:  Seeking Michigan's Census Secret.