Kalamazoo Research Guide

The busy folks at Seeking Michigan have added research guides for six more counties to their website, including Kalamazoo.  These guides provide a basic inventory of the records held by the Archives of Michigan in Lansing or in some cases records held at other locations such as the WMU Archives in Kalamazoo.  The record types include: Court Records, Land, Military, Naturalization, Occupational, Poor House Records, Prison, Probate, Tax Records, Voter Records and more, depending on the county.

The seventeen county research guides now available are for Calhoun, Clinton, Eaton, Genesee, Gratiot, Ingham, Ionia, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent, Livingston, Monroe, Oakland, Ottawa, Shiawassee, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.  You can find the guides here.  Read them on the site or download them as PDFs.

A word of warning, however, if you see a record type that you are particularly interested in you may want to call ahead to verify that what you are looking for is likely to be there.  While looking at the guide for Kalamazoo county I noticed the guide indicates the Chancery indexes go through 1920.  While looking through the microfilmed index at the WMU Archive (where these and many Kalamazoo area records are held) I found that the index went through at least May 1941.  The guide also states that the chancery records only go through 1932.  I found them to go into 1934. 

Despite the minor differences I found for one record type, the research guides are a great resource for any Michigan researcher.  One of the best things about them is that they may lead you to a record type you might not have thought to consult or never even realized existed.

What's Coming To Seeking Michigan?

Drum roll, please . . . more death certificates as well as naturalization records. As everyone reading this likely knows, Seeking Michigan currently hosts Michigan death certificates from 1897 (when they were first required) through 1920. You may also be aware that in the spring of 2013 Family Search posted an index to Michigan death certificates for 1921-1952. Rumors circulated that Family Search or Seeking Michigan would eventually post the images for these records. Kris Rzepczynski, writing in the Michigan Genealogical Council Newsletter, has settled the debate by announcing that Seeking Michigan will add death certificate images, but with a catch. [1] Because Michigan imposes a 75-year restriction on access to death records only images up through 1937 will become available initially. [1] Then as we celebrate each New Year, images will be uploaded for the next allowable year. [1]

The other big news item is that Michigan naturalization records will eventually be available through a partnership between the Archives of Michigan and Family Search. [1] However, don't expect to jump into these records anytime soon. First, many of these records have yet to be scanned and indexed. [1] Second, this is a large collection. Archives staff “estimates that this database will dwarf any existing collection” now online at Seeking Michigan. [1] Some indexes are already available, including Kalamazoo county, but for the rest we'll have to wait. A list of the county naturalization records held by the Archives of Michigan can be found here (click on the County Circuit Courts box). To search the available indexes click here.  For more information on these records you can read the Archives of Michigan circular.  It's important to note that if your ancestor petitioned a federal court to become naturalized you won't find their records in this collection.

The naturalization record index will be available at Family Search while the actual images will be on the Seeking Michigan website. If you are a Family Search indexer keep an eye out for this project. If you have never done any indexing, it's not difficult to do. Indexing is done by the batch with each batch requiring on average 30-60 minutes to complete, depending on the number of fields to complete and the ease of reading the handwriting. If everyone does even a few batches it will speed the process along. To learn more about becoming an indexer click here. 

Kris Rzepczynski. Archives of Michigan & Abrams Foundation Historical Collection. Michigan Genealogical Council Newsletter. Fall 2013. Vol 37 (issue 4). p. 13.

Michigan County Research Guides

Seeking Michigan is in the process of preparing county research guides listing the original source records held by the Archives of Michigan. The record types include: Court Records, Land, Military, Naturalization, Occupational, Poor House Records, Prison, Probate, Tax Records, Voter Records and more, depending on the county. Within each category, you will find a list of the specific records as well as the year range and record group number. For some counties you'll find quite a list of resources and for others only a few.

Finding aids in the Archives include more detailed information about each type of record. The finding aids are organized by record group.

The counties for which guides are currently available are: Clinton, Eaton, Ingham, Ionia, Jackson, Livingston, Kent, Ottawa, Shiawassee, Washtenaw and Wayne.  You can find them here. 

Records for some counties are housed at the WMU Archives (and are noted on the list) so be sure to pay attention so you travel to the correct location to view your records of interest. Note: walk-in research at the WMU Archives has been suspended until they move into their new building in October. 

Seeking Michigan also has guides to help you learn more about some of these records and where they are available.  They have guides for Vital Records, Immigration and Naturalization Records and Military Records.

Early MI Census Surprises

I just checked back at Seeking Michigan to see if they had added any more early Michigan Census images to their site since my previous and they had. I searched for “Smith” in the collection and found a few surprises. But wait. . . before you start doing your happy dance, like I did, let me temper your enthusiasm. In many cases you will not be able to compare the people in your family tree with a bunch of age check marks. Although the forms used in many cases were the lovely census forms I described in my previous post (More MI Census) the enumerators ignored all of those columns and simply listed the names (it appears) of men over 21. Some of the records for Washtenaw county are poor (the right portion of the image is very dark so you may not be able to find your people even if they are there). Most other images I looked at were fairly good, however.

These records come from the holdings of both the Library of Michigan, and the Archives of Michigan.

Here are the records that have been added since I posted about this earlier in the week and the type of information you can expect to find. If I don't include a note after the record available it means that the census form was used as intended. It is possible that more counties and years are represented in this database, but this is what I found in my search for “Smith.” I'm not sure how common this name was throughout the state, but there were a lot of Smiths in Eaton county. As of April 4, here are all of the early census records available at Seeking Michigan.

Branch, 1854, 1874 (Industry schedule that lists names and occupations of men over 21)

Clinton, 1864

Eaton, 1845, 1854, 1874 (Heads of households or men over 21 [not sure which] & occupations)

Houghton, 1864, 1874 (Heads of households or men over 21 [not sure which] & occupations)

Kalamazoo, 1874 (Heads of households or men over 21 [not sure which] & occupations)

Lenawee, 1845

Sanilac, 1864

St. Joseph, 1845

Washtenaw, 1827 (in some, but not all, cases the column headings were missing, so look for images from the same year), 1845 (Names of white males over 21), 1854 (Names of males over 21)

It looks like some of these records, 1874 for at least some counties and perhaps other years as well, may have been transcribed from another record or list. While examining an 1874 record for Houghton county I noticed that each name was numbered, but the first name on the page was not number one. Then mid-way down the page I saw “P16” and the numbers started from one. I can't think of a simpler explanation than that this list was compiled from another record, though don't quote me on that.

When you begin looking for your kin, remember that Seeking Michigan does not do fuzzy searches. Only exact matches will turn up. So, be prepared to search by first name and county if at first you don't find what you are expecting. That's what I had to do, but it paid off. Now, if only I could go back in time to give those enumerators a piece of my mind.

More MI Census Images at Seeking Michigan

I'm happy to report that Seeking Michigan is slowly adding images for more Michigan state census records dating between 1827 and 1874. Since late January only the 1845 St. Joseph county images have been available, but records for Clinton and Eaton counties are now online as well. If they add all of the census images available at the Library of Michigan here is what we can look forward to:

Branch 1854 (incomplete), 1874 (index only)

Clinton 1864

Eaton 1845 (abstract), 1854 (index only)

Houghton 1864, 1874

Kalamazoo 1837 (abstract), 1874

Lenawee 1845

Oakland 1845 (abstract)

St. Clair 1845

St. Joseph 1845

Van Buren 1845

Washtenaw 1827, 1834, 1845

According to the Library of Michigan (LoM) website “abstract” means that the copy in the LoM was transcribed from the original source. The term “index only” means that the LoM has an index, but not the actual record. I find this somewhat puzzling because the images for Eaton county for both 1845 and 1854 are now online at SeekingMichigan. This begs the question whether the information from the abstract/index was copied back onto census forms prior to uploading (which seems unlikely to me) or whether the actual records were somehow acquired. Either way, the images are available and everyone will have to determine how much weight to put on the information contained therein.

Keep in mind that these are early census records and therefore don't have as much information as later ones. The 1845 records include the name of the head of household, the number of white males over 21 as well as their names. Ages for all whites in the household are indicated by check marks. There are also columns to note colored persons, indians taxed, persons deaf and dumb or insane.

The form for 1854 and 1864 provides slightly more information. It lists the name of the head of family and those over 21, the occupation of those over 21 and ages of everyone in the household (check marks). There are also columns to note the number of married/unmarried people of each sex, and to indicate blind, deaf and dumb, insane or idiotic and colored persons. The number of marriages and deaths in the preceding year are also noted so don't overlook them.

MI Census Good News, Bad News

The good news is that Seeking Michigan has completed it's project to post images of the Michigan 1894 census on the website. In addition, they have included images for the 1884 Michigan census. The bad news is that not all counties are represented (insert sigh of disappointment here). The story goes that the missing records were either donated during a WWII paper drive or perished in a 1951 fire.

The counties and years covered by these records are as follows:

Baraga (1884), Barry (1884, 1894), Bay (1884, 1894), Benzie (1884), Gratiot (1894),

Hillsdale (1884, 1894), Ingham (1884, 1894), Iosco (1894), Jackson (1884, 1894), 

Kalamazoo (1884, Pavilion-Wakeshma twps only; 1894), Kent (1884, 1894), Keweenaw (1884), 

Lake (1884), Lapeer (1884, 1894), Lenawee (1884, 1894), Livingston (1894), Menominee (1884, 1894), 

Midland (1894), Montcalm (1884, 1894), Muskegon (1884, 1894), Newaygo (1884, 1894), 

Ottawa (1884, 1894), Roscommon (1884), Sanilac (1884, 1894), St. Clair (1884, 1894), 

St. Joseph (1884, 1894), Washtenaw (1884, 1894), Wayne (1884, 1894).

To start searching go to the Seeking Michigan website and choose “Advanced Search” at the upper right of the screen. Be sure to de-select “Death Records.” Keep in mind that the search algorithm only finds exact matches. To work around this you can type in multiple spellings and select “or” from the drop-down menu. The download feature now works nicely. Good luck finding ancestors and answers. And don't forget to check in Jackson county if you have any lawbreakers in your past.

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.

Michigan State Census Records

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Michigan conducted its own population census about every ten years during the latter half of the 19^th century. The bad news is that most of these records were either destroyed or have vanished. However, depending on where your ancestors lived you may be able to find some of these records for your family.

The first time Michigan attempted to enumerate its inhabitants was in 1827, before statehood, but very few of the early records still exist. With a few exceptions, the ones you are most likely to find are for the years 1845 (head of household only, transcription available at www.Ancestry.com), 1884 and 1894 (transcription available at www.familysearch.org). And now, thanks to Seeking Michigan you can find images for existing state censuses from 1827 to 1894 on their website.  Their website lists which years are available by county.

The Library of Michigan holds many of these state census records. Coverage is spotty so you will definitely want to go to this website to see which records exist for which counties.

For Kalamazoo county the records available at the Library of Michigan are 1837 (abstract of records, with an index), 1874 (no index), 1884 (incomplete, no index), 1894 (no index). The Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society has 1884 census pages for Kalamazoo county available for Pavilion, Portage, Prairie Ronde, Ross, Schoolcraft, Texas and Wakeshma townships (I believe the records for the rest of the county are missing). These records can be found by searching the KVGS database.

The WMU Archives has state census records for Kalamazoo county (1837, 1884, 1894), Ottawa county (1884) and St. Joseph county (1845, 1884, 1894). The Van Buren District Library also has some state census records: Allegan (1894, incomplete), Kalamazoo (1884, Pavilion through Wakeshma), St. Joseph (1884 or 1894) and Van Buren (1845).

If you have military men in your tree who may have served in the Civil War (or possibly Mexican or Indian wars) you should also check the 1883 census of pensioners. Note that only men who were receiving a pension in 1883 are on the list. Some veterans may not have begun receiving benefits until later. If that is the case, you can look in the 1890 union veterans/widows schedule, which you can find at Ancestry.com.

It is unfortunate that many of the state census records no longer exist, but you may get lucky and find them in one that remains. Why bother looking if you already have your family pegged in the US Federal census? Don't underestimate the power of your ancestors to surprise you? Some of them moved around quite a bit and you may be able to track them to a new location with additional records you can pursue. Another good reason is because you may find a child who was born and died between federal censuses. You never know what you might find, but you'll certainly never find anything unless you turn over that stone and look.

Fortunately, the fine people at Seeking Michigan have scanned the existing census records and have made them available on their website. 

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.