September 2019
What You Can Find on Location
I've been planning research trips since 1975, and I'm still surprised at how much I can find on location that is not recorded online. On my trip to Michigan last week, I visited the Manistee Historical Museum, the Manistee County Library, and the Manistee County Courthouse (twice each over 4 days), and got photographs at Mt. Carmel Cemetery in Manistee and Corfu Cemetery in Brethren Township.
As I knew it would be, the Historical Museum's card index of articles in the Manistee newspapers since 1871 were especially helpful. Aside from a few scattered issues published in Google News Archive, these newspapers are not online. One article in the Manistee Daily News of Feb. 23, 1903 told of the founding of Manistee, Alabama by the Louiselle brothers of Eastlake, MI. The obituary for John William Dixon in June 1896 "at the home of his daughter Mrs. J. Severly of Corfu" stated that he was born January 6, 1820 in London England and was survived by a sister in England and thirteen children (5 sons and 8 daughters) to mourn him. That's a lot of information that is not online!
If you're planning a research trip to a new location and want to be sure you hit all the bases, I recommend these links as starting points:
Linkpendium
FamilySearch Wiki
Death Indexes
Cyndi's List
What I've Been Doing
* Organizing and analyzing the information I found in 4 days of research in Manistee, Michigan
* Updating my DNA presentation for the Gig Harbor library on October 12
* Planning my research and conference trips for next year
|
