Midwestern Deeds Online Update

In the five-state area of our focus, I now know of a total of five counties that have historical deeds on line. (Here's my original post on the subject from June.) These are all free sites. I've improved the linkage, and DeKalb is new!

Illinois

DeKalb County via FamilySearch (browseable with indexes)

Will County via Illinois Digital Archive (indexes only, surnames A-K only)

Ohio

Cuyahoga County via fiscal officer (searchable by book and page numbers only)

Stark County via recorder (sign up, archive search, first search index by letter, then deeds by book and page)

Wisconsin

Outagamie County via FamilySearch (browseable with indexes)


These are strictly deeds, the meat and potatoes of property research -- not patents, maps, plats, or tract books. (As far as I can tell, Ancestry has nothing at all in this category.) Surely there are more!


Harold Henderson, "Midwestern Deeds Online Update," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 11 August 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Midwestern Deeds On Line -- More or Less!

Finding local property transactions on line isn't easy. (I'm not talking about plat maps or lists of the first landowners, but the deeds and mortgages that record all buying and selling after that.)

Many county recorders have only recent records, say the last 10-60 years, on line -- and even this limited access seems tailored for the deep-pockets crowd. Some charge $5 per search or have subcontracted the access to places like countyrecords.com and landaccess.com. (I'm not opposed to paying for on-line convenience but that seems a little steep.) Genealogy-friendly on-line access seems rare, but it can't be as rare as my unsystematic searching has found!

FamilySearch has browseable deeds for two Midwestern counties:

* Outagamie County, Wisconsin (deeds 1867-1900, indexes 1870s-1957)

* Clay County, Minnesota (deeds 1825-1901 and later in a few books; grantee indexes 1879-1901, grantor 1839-1901)

In local initiatives:

* Will County, Illinois, has searchable grantor-grantee deed indexes 1836-1885, available through the Illinois Digital Archives (offering only surnames A-K in a user-unfriendly format) or through the Plainfield Public Library site Will County: Preserving History's Heritage (only very terse transcriptions of the index).

So far, the best I've found are in Ohio's Western Reserve, where direct free access to deeds of any age from:

* Cuyahoga County, Ohio's Fiscal Officer.

* Stark County, Ohio's Recorder. Complete a simple signup, sign in, and go to "archive search."

Sometimes the best solution is to go there. On line or off, it helps to be familiar with the many indexing systems used. (In Stark County the indexes are by first letter of surname, first letter of given name, and then chronological. There are good reasons for this but for the novice it can be challenging.)

But check around first and feel free to add to (or correct) this little list in the comments!

Harold Henderson, "Midwestern Deeds On Line -- More or Less!" Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 7 June 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

More Midwestern deaths on line

Joe Beine's recent blog post of newly added online death indexes includes the following Midwestern entries:

Illinois -- Vermilion County

Indiana -- Knox County and Southern Indiana

Michigan -- Detroit area (recent)

Ohio -- Cuyahoga, Lucas, and Trumbull counties

Wisconsin -- Wisconsin Medical Journal (WMJ) Physician Obituary Database 1903-2008

Methodology Monday with the Fall Ohio Genealogy News

The new issue of Ohio Genealogy News is so packed with information I need two blog posts to cover it. In the methodology department, we have:

* Cross-check Your Sources: Dan Reigle, co-editor of the Ohio Civil War Genealogy Journal, amplifies on an earlier article about the Veterans Grave Registration cards, showing how the cards are valuable sources but they do contain errors, and need to be cross-checked against other military records, "as with any thorough genealogical study," using the example of Garnett B. Adrain. More likely his name was Adrian, and he served not one but two separate hitches in the Civil War.

* Know Your History: Neil H. Elvick describes land and property research in Gallia County, which has two different sets of original land records, from the Ohio Company in the east, and from the US government in the western half.

* When Indexes Fail: Marianne Szabo describes how browsing the Cuyahoga County Birth Returns at Footnote.com enabled her to find a Booms relative. Searching alone had failed, because the data was indexed under the name Boomer.

All About Cleveland

If you have Western Reserve or Cuyahoga County ancestors and don't know about the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, it's time to get on the bus. It includes biographies, general articles, images (salt mine, anyone?), and a historical timeline (pick a number between 1 and 10 and you will have the total population of the city in 1800). There must be a map of the city's neighborhoods somewhere, but I couldn't find it. Let me know if you do!

Hat tip: Internet Scout Report

Ohio Records and Pioneer Families #3, 2008

One of OGS's four quarterlies, this time out Ohio Records and Pioneer Families focuses on Cuyahoga and Williams counties, along with Erie, Richland, and Preble:

"Joanna Wickham & Seth Doan Family, Cleveland OH" submitted gby Melissa Danielsson

"Norman & Electa Hale Hills, Erie County, Ohio," submitted by Linda Hills, including a discussion of farms displaced in 1941 for wartime construction.

"First Families of Ohio: The Early Years," abstracted by Kay Ballantyne Hudson

"Revolutionary War Pension Application Abstracts," abstracted by Lois Wheeler

"Official Register of Physicians by County, 1896 -- Williams County"

"Merchants, Manufacturers & Traders of Ohio, 1885"

"Divorces, Richland County, Ohio, 1848-1859," abstracted by Missy Derrenberger. Admit it -- these always make good reading. By my count 11 of the 28 divorces were sought by men.

"Josephine Wilson Photographs, Preble County, Ohio," submitted by Diane VansKiver Gagel

"Elizabeth Meily Spitler," by Sarah June Black, age 12

"War of 1812: Ohio Raised Regiments for US Army," submitted by Eric Johnson

"Ohio's Forgotten Military Cemeteries," submitted by Eric Johnson

If you've got old Ohio goodies and an itch to write them up, action editor Susan Dunlap Lee wants to hear from you: "Articles are needed NOW for future issues."

Two places you wish your ancestors were buried

NEHGS eNews highlights two Midwestern cemetery websites, one small, one large:

Lakeside Cemetery in Bay Village, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, has "over 270" burials.

Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, by contrast, has over 185,000 burials including John Dillinger's, and (this is a new one on me) a staff genealogist. It's also the headquarters of the Genealogical Society of Marion County.