`
LOOKING FOR CLUES
COURTHOUSES contain county offices and courts of law. An untold amount of material can be found there. If you go in person and look at the ledgers and resources, you can copy the information. Are you unable to travel? Volunteers are now available in almost all counties in the United States through Internet. In addition to looking up records, some offer photos of cemetery monuments and markers. These remarkable people can be found at this site: http://raogk.rootsweb.com
COURTHOUSE (or other GOVERNMENT*) OFFICES TO VISIT
County Clerk for birth, death, marriage, divorce, civil court and naturalization records, in many cases
Probate Judge for probate records of Wills and Administrations
Register of Deeds for records of land patents (first time owners) and titles.
*NOTE: Depositories for records vary from state to state.
LIBRARIES are of utmost importance in research for they contain compiled family histories (perhaps yours has already been started), county history books (a relative may be listed), census films (years 1790-1920), city directories, microfilm and microfiche for lists of ships and passengers, armed services personnel and their pension files, cemeteries, obituaries, old newspapers, etc. The first word to learn in researching is the word DOCUMENTATION. Each clue or piece of information you find should be recorded; such as, name of book, publisher and year, author and page number. This will save untold hours of backtracking, if you decide to publish your findings or simply make copies for your family. If you eventually join a heritage society, a requisite is to have proof of your lineage. That is one reason the Daughters and Sons of the America Revolution (DAR and SAR) records have been known to be most reliable for authenticity.
NATIONAL
FAVORITES
Family
History Center Library at Salt Lake City, Utah
Allen
County Library at Fort Wayne, Indiana
Library of Congress at Washington, DC
LOCAL FAVORITES
Rochester Hills Library has Interloan, microfilm and microfiche machines
at
Old
Towne Rd.; (248) 656-2900.
Michigan Federal Census is available.
Detroit Public Library for nationally known Burton
Collection
Woodward Ave. nr. Warren
State
of Michigan Library at Lansing, MI