Michigan Genealogist, first issue of 2008

The latest issue of the web-only Michigan Genealogist from the Library of Michigan features a number of interesting sources at the library, including:

Michigan Deaths 1897-1920, the microfilms of which will actually be unavailable until the end of July because they're being digitized by Ancestry.com; after that point that they'll be available on the library's website for free.

Microfilm of all issues of the Grand Rapids Herald 1898-1959, a time span that nicely matches the Western Michigan Genealogical Society's excellent online obituary index.

Microfilm of certificates of enrollment issued for merchant vessels at Oswego, New York, 1815-1911 -- i.e., could be information on the ship your ancestors traveled west on. These are National Archives and Records Administration publication M2107 (PDF introduction).

About 30 editions of the Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory between 1860 and 1932.

Early Ontario records which include Loyalist family claims. One woman's husband, "always a friend of Gt. Britain," was reported to have left Westmoreland County in western Pennsylvania and "set out to get into [British-held] Detroit" in September 1780, but "was killed by the Indian who had undertaken to be his guide." His widow and children made it two years later.

There's much more, including listings of the oldest people recorded dying in various Michigan counties during 1868, records of soldiers wounded in wars between 1790 and 1848, and an account of temperance activism in Lansing.

Michigan Genealogist covers everything from Virginia to Ontario

Michigan Genealogist (PDF) isn't a publication of the Michigan Genealogical Society, because there isn't one (the only statewide genealogy organization is a council of local groups). It's the quarterly newsletter of the state's Department of History, Arts, and Libraries, and it's an on-line publication.

The fourth issue of 2007 -- mostly written by librarians and archivists with reference to their employer's holdings -- covers an amazing amount of ground. The following is a selection:

"Map Guide to German Parish Registers," by Kendel Darragh

"Researching Your Ontario Ancestors"

"Using Online Indexes to Michigan Land Records," by Gloriane Peck

"Research with Probate Records," by Kris Rzepczynski

"The First Three Years of the Michigan First Vital Records Act" (i.e., 1867-1870), by Charles Hagler

"Virginia Genealogy Sources for Michiganders" (this is not a joke!), by Edwina Morgan

"The Birth and Death of Lansing's Black Neighborhoods," by Robert Garrett

And where else are you going to learn that the Library of Michigan holds a microfilm index to the 1855 state census of -- Illinois?