Finding Your Ancestors in Michigan by Robert Chapin March 2011
Getting Started • Personal interviews are the fastest way to research your family! • Make a family tree. • Use free software. • Know what you don’t know. • Take your questions to Google. – Quickly realize Google can’t answer them.
Weddings and Obituaries • They are the most common sources of biographical information. • You won’t find this in any official record. • Can be the key to tracing female ancestry. • Obituaries can be found, offline, by date. • Wedding announcements are extremely difficult to locate without an index.
Kelly
Large Databases Accelerating Your Research
Social Security Death Index • Includes most citizens starting in 1962. • Usually my first stop when researching recent generations. • Free search is available. • Easy to use. • Information can help you find obituaries. • State of issuance is a unique detail.
SSDI
Chabensky
Family. Search. org • General purpose genealogy databases. • Free. • Much easier to use in 2011. • Some unique resources. – Ontario Census of 1861 – Vital Records Indexes from Many States
Fitzstephens
Ancestry. com • Largest genealogy database in the world. • Not free. Currently $30/mo. • Limited access from some libraries. • A good deal after exhausting all other resources, and you know what to look for. • No reason to subscribe for more than one or two months for personal use.
Hathi. Trust Library • Founders include University of Michigan. • Contains 2. 9 billion pages, thanks to the Google Books deal. • Surprises you with information that would never be found any other way. • Free.
Fitzstephens
Narrow Your Search Getting More Specific
Ellis Island, New York • 12 million people entered the United States through this station. • 1892 through 1954. • Database search with free registration. • Microfilm images are “free. ” Sort of.
Chabensky
Example Transcription Error “Ekaterinoslav, Russia” Spelled three different ways. Why? Corrected Transcription This record originally said, “Ivo Chalensky” My correction was accepted because of the mismatch.
Seeking Michigan • New database of death certificates. • 1897 through 1920. • Funded in 2008 by the Talbert and Leota Abrams Foundation. • First online in 2009. • Free.
Fitzstephens
Example Transcription Error Thomas Jr. is displayed here. Thomas Sr. is missing. Why?
Jewish Ancestors • Check out Jewish. Gen. org, especially if you have Hebrew or Yiddish text. • For the World War II era, check the Holocaust database at Yad. Vashem. org. • There are many resources specific to Jewish genealogy in Michigan.
Michigan Jewish Cemetery Index
Chapin
Farmers in the Family • Agrarian families don’t move frequently. – Less likely to be missed in a census. – Searching by location can work well. • Parcels of land tend to be large. – These will show up on township maps. • Little village newspaper, little news. – Someone visited for tea time, seriously.
umdl. umich. edu
Fancy name for search by title
Washtenaw
Finding Your Ancestors • Get started. • Look for biographical announcements. • Use large, general-purpose databases. • Narrow your search using resources specific to your family. • Most of this can be done for free.
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