Michigan resources – Copper Leaf Genealogy

More and more records are becoming digitized, which is a fabulous thing! I love being able to look for items while in my warm and cozy home instead of driving a few hours in this cold snowy weather. Keeping in mind that the majority of my record hunting does involve driving a few hours away or sending letters out, I love when I find resources that allow me to research from home.

Newspapers are a big part of my genealogy work as I get a lot of family information from obituaries and I find it very important to know what was happening in the area my ancestors lived while they were living there. So the Michigan Digital Newspaper Portal is a very exciting resource! It comes from my Alma Mater, Central Michigan University, so I’m also a bit proud 🙂

Not every newspaper database here is free (nor are all counties/cities represented) but the list will tell you if it’s a free site or a pay site. The pay sites can vary from newspaperarchive.com to genealogybank.com to sites that can only be viewed with a library card for that library.

Either way, this is a great resource to look into. For me, if I find I am looking for papers that can be found here all linked to one place (like genealogybank.com) then I consider getting a subscription to the website. So this is good to see if another subscription would be worth it or not.

Also, if you’re interested, Indiana has their own digital site for Indiana newspapers. Again, not every county/city is represented but it’s a great resource to keep for later as it’ll continue being added to – and these are free!

Since the majority of my family is from Saginaw County (some lines since the Civil War), I do a lot of my research in the county. The librarians now recognize my face and name whenever I come in or email them! Although, some of the librarians there knew me as a child (my family went to the library every Saturday when I was growing up) so I guess that isn’t much of a stretch 🙂

The Obituary Index above has been a wonderful resource and I want to spotlight it to show what a library can do with their resources. It’s always a good idea to see if something like this is available as it’s becoming a bit more common.

The Public Libraries of Saginaw went through their extensive newspapers for the city of Saginaw (there were MANY newspapers over the years) and have created this wonderful database. You can search by name, a name and a year, a year, or a month and year. It also allows wildcard searches in case your ancestor has an oddly spelled name.

The information then provided varies. Here is one that doesn’t have much (and sometimes you can get less than this!):

And one with a lot more:

Sometimes it’ll even mention parent’s names as well.

In the upper right corner of the information, in the yellow, it’ll tell you what newspaper it came from. If the space is blank, like Gerald’s, that means it came from the Saginaw News which became (and still is) the only paper in Saginaw. It also gives you the date and the page the mention can be found on (not always accurate but if it isn’t, it’s only a page or so off). Sometimes you’ll see more than one newspaper mention too. For example, one of my relatives was killed in a car accident so it has the first report and then later a memorial note.

This is a wonderful resource and goes back as far as the newspapers do! If you have questions, the response time from the staff is quick and has been a great help in my research (especially since I can’t get there often to actually see the obituary!).

Even if this particular website isn’t useful for you, it’s always a good idea to see what kinds of resources are available through the library because you can find gems like this one! Even if your family came from a rural town without a newspaper, like some of mine did, they could still be mentioned in the bigger city newspaper so check the next biggest city’s library for information as well.

Happy Searching! 🙂

Tag: Michigan resources

Michigan Resource: Digital Newspapers

Michigan Resources: Saginaw Obituary Index