SOME HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR GENEALOGY COLLECTION

• MUSKEGON CO. VITAL RECORDS ON MICROFILM: BIRTHS, DEATHS, MARRIAGES (SEE BELOW)
• MUSKEGON NEWSPAPERS (see below)
• MUSKEGON CO. CENSUS (MICROFILM) 1884 & 1894
• FAMILY HISTORIES
• SAM ATHERTON COLLECTION, OCEANA CO. (INDEXED)
• SURNAME INDEX (3 X 5 CARD FILE)
• CITY DIRECTORIES (MUSKEGON CO.)

MUSKEGON COUNTY RECORDS ON MICROFILM

NEWSPAPERS ON MICROFILM

Help Pages

• About.com Genealogy Site
• African American Genealogy Research - Bibliography of resources for researching African American genealogy, including beginner's guides, guidebooks, case studies, and bibliographies. African American Family Histories and Related Works in the Library of Congress is also available by navigating up a level on this website to Bibliographies & Guides. From the Library of Congress, Humanities and Social Sciences Division. (LII)
• African American Research - Overview of the resources of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for researching African American genealogy (LII)
• Census Tools  - has several Excel spreadsheets available for free download. (RB)
• Genealogy: Advice for Effective Searches - Answer a series of simple questions and get free, customized advice on the most effective next steps in your genealogy search.
• Genealogy Roots Blog - Info on doing research. (LIB)
• Geni - A web based family tree creator. Share your tree with others in your family and they can also add to it. (DS)
• National Genealogical Society
• What's New in Genealogy
• Family Tree Maker - Genealogy Software

Genealogy Sites

• African-American specific sites
  • African American Genealogy Research
  • AfriGeneas - Devoted to African Americans telling their family stories.
  • Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1719-1820 - African slave names, genders, ages, occupations, illnesses, family relationships, ethnicity, places of origin, prices paid for slaves, and slaves' testimony and emancipations. (LII)
  • Christine's Genealogy Website - African American genealogy information.
  • Cyndi's List: African-American
  • Database of Servitude and Emancipation Records (1722– 1863):Illinois (RB)
  • Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls Database - Searchable by name/partial name (you must enter at least two letters of the surname), company, unit, or place of residence (RB)
  • Freedmen's Bureau Online
  • The St. Louis Circuit Court Historical Records Project  - search for Freedom Suits, legal petitions for freedom brought by or on behalf of persons of color held in slavery within the St. Louis area from 1814 to 1860. (RB)
• Arizona Genealogy Resource - The State of Arizona's Department of Health Services, Arizona State Library, and the Mesa Family History Library have teamed up to provide a database of more than 400,000 images of birth certificates (between 1887 and 1928) and death certificates (between 1878 and 1953) (RB)
• Find My Past - a database featuring BT27 Outward Passenger Lists for long-distance voyages leaving the British Isles from 1960 right back to 1890. You can search by name, destination, and more. Passenger list images can be downloaded too. (LIB)
• Ancestry.Com
• Ancestry UK
• Ancestry Library Edition - for use within Hackley Public Library only.
• Canada 1901 Census - from the National Archives of Canada.
• 1911 Canadian Census Online - from the Library and Archives of Canada
• Cemeteries
  • Interment - Searchable cemetery records for over 1700 cemetaries worldwide (most in the US)
  • Cemetery Junction - Cemetery listings for the US and Australia.
  • South Dakota Cemetery Record Search - This searchable database includes records that were cataloged as part of the WPA Cemetery Project (pre-1940s) plus any cemetery updates that our office has received. It is not a complete listing of all the burials in South Dakota.
  • Veterans Cemetary Records - three million veterans' cemetery records from the Department of Veterans Affairs
• Castle Garden Immigration Records - a Manhattan immigration center before Ellis Island.
• Census Online - Links to Online Census Records - online census transcriptions.
• ChicagoAncestors - The quest to document one's family tree is one that stretches back across the human experience, and it can be done through the use of government records, obituaries, and so on. Recently, the Newberry Library in Chicago created this site for persons looking to trace their roots within the Windy City. First-time visitors to the site can just go ahead and type in a street address or browse through the online collections which are culled from a variety of local institutions. In the Tools area, visitors will find address conversion tools, Chicago City Directory street guides, and a tutorial on researching Chicago in the period before the fire of 1871. Visitors also have the opportunity to add content information to this interactive resource, which it should be noted is open source. (SR)
• Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System - information on over six million soldiers and sailors from 44 states and territories who were involved in the Civil War (RB)
• The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 1636-1776
• Death Indexes - includes pointers to death indexes divided by US state.
• Death Index for New York City - from the Italian Genealogical Group.
• Ellis Island Records
• 1901 Census for England and Wales
• Family Genealogy and History Internet Education Directory - Humanities and social sciences mega portal, connected directly to thousands of related sub-sets. (IRN)
• FamilySearch - from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, one of the best genealogical sites on the web.
• Family Tree Searcher - Enter your ancestor data just once to search for family trees at multiple web sites.
• The Official Federal Land Patent Records Site - access to Federal land conveyance records for the Public Land States. [There is] also image access to more than two million Federal land title records for Eastern Public Land States, issued between 1820 and 1908. (LII)
• Genealogy Today.com - divided into several broad sections, including Getting Started, Family History, and Research Tools. (SR)
• Genealogy Search Help - specialized genealogy search help for ancestor hunting folks. (RB)
• Genealogy Today: Civil War Resources - browsable list of Web links to U.S. Civil War resources. (LII)
• GENUKI: UK and Ireland Genealogy - genealogy site for the UK and Ireland. (LII)
• Scottish Emigration Database - examine the records of over 21,000 passengers who embarked at Glasgow and Greenock for other ports. While the database only covers a small time period, the database is well-designed for general use. First-time visitors should take a look at the “User Guide”, which includes details about the different fields used in each record, such as “occupation”, “urban district/village”, and “destination port”. (SR)
• DIMTI: German Emblem Books - digitally scanned and searchable. (SR)
• Heritage Quest Online - available in all Michigan Libraries, or at home with a valid Michigan ID number
• Illinois Marriages search - for marriages between 1763 and 1900. (RB)
• Illinois Civil War Veteran Database (RB)
• Irish genealogy - a directory. (RB)
• Kansas Heritage Group - For people with ancestors from Kansas
• Mayflower Web Page - For people whose ancestors came on the Mayflower. (LII)
• Michigan County Histories and Atlases online collection - an assortment of books fundamental to local-history and genealogical research, a collaborative effort of the Library of Michigan, Michigan's Council of Library Directors (COLD) and the Michigan Library Consortium.
• Michigan Genealogical Death Indexing System (GENDIS) - information from archived death records, search for records using key pieces of information such as the decedent's name, father's last name, and year of death. (RT)
• Minnesota Historical Society
• Missouri World War I Records - This database contains over 145,000 cards of Army and Marine personnel from Missouri between 1917 and 1919. (There are plans to add the records of over 18,000 Navy personnel.) (RB)
• Missouri Death Certificates - The database is searchable by last name, first name, county, year, and month. (RB)
• National Archives and Records
• National Archives and Records Administration : Access to Archival Databases - over 5.2 million records of passengers who arrived at the ports of Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia in the 19th century. These records were transcribed from original ship manifests into databases by Temple University's Center for Immigration Research and donated to NARA. (FGI)
• National Historical Geographic Information System - a database incorporating all available aggregate census information for the United States between 1790 and 2000. (RT)
• New England Genealogical Society - Free for users inside Hackley Public Library
• Utah Death Certificate Index Online - This database is a name search only, last name first. (RB)
• West Virginia Births, Deaths, Marriages - Hosted by The West Virginia Division of Culture and History. (RB)
• Obituaries
  • Newspaper Obituaries - ObituariesHelp.org - Access newspaper obituaries and discover your genealogy online. Discover how to use vital records, obituary resources, old newspaper obituary archives, genealogy forms and printable family tree charts.
  • Obituary Finder - searches the recent obituaries of many newspapers.
  • The Cleveland Necrology File - produced from a microfilmed copy of an alphabetical card file containing local cemetery records and newspaper death notices gathered by the staff of the Cleveland Public Library. The database includes paid death notices published in the following newspapers:
    * The Cleveland Plain Dealer - 1850-1975
    * The Cleveland Herald - 1833, 1847-1848, 1876, 1878-1879
    * The Cleveland Press - 1941-1975 . For more recent obits, go to the same site and follow the directions.
  • Michigan Obituaries
  • Big 101 Obituaries - a list of links to obituaries in newspapers broken out by state (RB)
  • State of Pennsylvania Obituary Collection - microfilmed scrapbooks of obituaries clipped from papers, covering 16 October 1891 to 3 March 1904
• Ohio History - For people with genealogical interest in Ohio.
• Oregon State Archives: Genealogy Records - Resources include a guide to Oregon county records (which contains a comprehensive descriptive inventory of selected records for each of Oregon's 36 counties), a searchable selection of hundreds of thousands of vital statistics records, a guide to provisional and territorial records, and topical research aids. (LII)
• Public Records - United States and Canada. (LG)
• Roots-L Home Page
• Scottish Genealogy - some free databases, some not free.
• South Dakota Birth Records - birth records which are over 100 years old are now available online
• US Gen Web Project
• Valley Forge Muster Roll - information on those soldiers who served at the Valley Forge Encampment under General George Washington between December 1777 and June 1778.
• Vital Rec - This site helps you find vital records.
• World Gen Web Project

Meta Sites

• Cyndi's List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet
• LaPeer District Library - Genealogy Information from the LaPeer District Library.

Local History

• Muskegon City History - from the City of Muskegon.
• Muskegon Actor's Colony - Buster Keaton and the Muskegon Connection
• Muskegon High School Band
• Muskegon Historical Pictures - from our Flickr account
• Muskegon Memories - includes old photos, book reviews, and personal reminisces.
• Birdseye view of Muskegon City in 1868 - from the Library of Congress.
• Birdseye view of Muskegon in 1874 - from the Library of Congress.
• Grand Rapids History

316 W Webster Ave. -- Muskegon, MI, 49440 --  231-722-8000

Circulation Ext: 8000, Reference Ext: 8011, Tech Ext: 8012, Youth Services Ext: 8014, Local History Ext: 8016