The February Aggregator: more resources for Indiana, Ohio, Michigan,and

Cleaning out my mailbox so I can fill up yours!

Valerie Beaudrault at the New England Historical and Genealogical Society's "Weekly Genealogist" has spotted three collections of 20th-century obituaries on line for Randolph County, Indiana, and Darke County, Ohio, 1934-1948; Perry County, Indiana, 2001- ; and Garrett, DeKalb County, Indiana,1975-2012.

Not a database but a nice reminder of the value of store records appears in the Winter 2012 American Ancestors (also published by NEHGS), in particular the 51 volumes of "ledgers, journals, cash, day, inventory, and invoice books dating from 1882 to 1946" for S. Stern & Co. of Marcellus, Cass County, Michigan (southwest of Kalamazoo), now held at the Western Michigan University Archives and Regional History Collection. I have not viewed this collection, but if it is like some other business records, it may include information about the store's suppliers around the country as well as its customers in the immediate area.

Midwestern campus history is also burgeoning, with photo archives of Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, McLean County) and a century of University of Iowa yearbooks (1892-1992).