ARTICLE - Are You Searching For Michigan Ancestors? By Shirley C Hodges

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Formerly published by GlobalGazette.ca

Shirley G. Hodges

Are You Searching For Michigan Ancestors?
Published: 28 September 2010
By: Shirley Gage Hodges Biography & Archived Articles

If you have Michigan ancestors there are many sources that will help you find information about them. One of my favorites is the Seeking Michigan site. I would encourage you to spend some time checking out what is available there and then try using it to find information about your people. You will be amazed at the many categories that you can use to find information about your family.

You can initiate a search from the main page but I always recommending going to the Advanced Search feature. By utilizing this feature you can combine many different types of requests. In the following example I was looking for death records for any Tietsort family members who died in MI between 1987-1920.

I was very fortunate that I found death records for 6 of my family members.

Another site that I really find to be of value is the Genealogical Death Index System (GENDIS).

You will find information on 170,000 Michigan death records from 1867-1884.

I did a search for all Morris deaths that occurred in Eaton Co., MI.

I was able to find 7 death records for family members. This is the exact information that I would get if I had ordered a Certified Death Record.

Another wonderful source for your Michigan ancestors are the Michigan GenWeb pages.

This happens to be the page for Cass County, MI. When I went to that site and did a search for my Tietsort family I found 54 entries. There is a wealth of information there.

You can find a page for every state in the U. S. I would encourage you to spend some time looking for your families on these sites.

Some other suggested web pages for Michigan research:

The 1894 Michigan State Census can be a wonderful help to people who are looking for their ancestors who were United States Soldiers of the Civil War Residing in Michigan, June 1, 1894. You can use this to help you find your individual during the time between the 1880 census and the 1900 census. I was able to find my great grandfather, Delorma Wisner, living in Osceloa Co. on this schedule. It helped me understand more about his migration pattern.
Another good source is Cyndi's List for Michigan resources. You might want to spend some time reviewing what is available there.
And finally, there is a helpful and inexpensive Michigan Genealogy Research aid by Carol McGinnis that has been recently published by GPC.