Happy Holidays from the St. Joseph County Public Library!

The November-December newsletter from the St. Joseph County (Indiana) Public Library's Local History and Genealogy Services arrived before the 25th, but I didn't. Fortunately this is a gift without an expiration date, especially for those with "Michiana" research targets. Sara Allen compiled a list of area libraries' on-line obituary databases:

South Bend (St. Joseph County IN) 1913-present
Bremen (Marshall County IN) before 1997
Elkhart (Elkhart County IN) 1921-present
Michigan City (La Porte County IN) 1887-present
Niles (Berrien County MI)
Plymouth (Marshall County IN) 1922-1979
Wakarusa (Elkhart County IN)

You can google the public libraries in question, or hang on until this issue of the newsletter is up at the above site. More on Elkhart County in a later post.

Online resources at both ends of Indiana

In northern Indiana:

In Elkhart County, the Wakarusa Public Library Historical Room has a few photographs, maps, books, and articles on line, plus a goodly number of obituaries including full transcribed text from local newspapers. (I can't tell how many are indexed, but just two of them have birthdates before 1800.) The other items are browseable as well as searchable, the obituaries are only searchable. We all buzz right over to the obituaries, but if you have research targets there don't forget to check out the three plat maps of land ownership in Olive Township (the east half of congressional township 36 North range 4 East of the 2nd principal meridian) for 1874, 1892, and 1915.

Just a few miles south of Wakarusa near the Kosciusko county line, the Nappanee Public Library’s Evelyn Lehman Culp Heritage Center Collection has a similarly searchable set of obituaries.

In southern Indiana:

In Washington County (northwest of Louisville KY), Salem's Crown Hill Cemetery was founded in 1824. The city of Salem has its history and records on line, complete with a location map within the cemetery. (Two burials from 1824 are recorded.) This is the way on line cemeteries should be. The history refers to a cholera epidemic in 1833, and you can confirm that by searching for burials by date: six in 1832, 47 in 1833, eight in 1834. The site also links to the Washington County Historical Society's John Hay Center, with a genealogical library. (Hay was born here and is best known for being Abraham Lincoln's personal secretary.)

(Another hat tip to Valerie Beaudrault of the New England Historic Genealogical Society's eNews for spotting the above resources.)

Also in virtual southern Indiana, right on the Ohio River, the Vanderburgh County genweb site has a new look and includes links to the Willard Library in Evansville and to the famous Browning obituary collection.