Top Five MWM Posts for May 2012

I have my favorites, but these were the readers' choices from May:

1. Why We Don't Write (May 6)

2. The toughest genealogy course you can take? (May 28)

3. Proving in-laws without direct evidence (May 7)

4. "If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all" (May 17)

5. NGS Day 2 Thursday the 10th (May 11)

The first two were runaways, the remainder pretty closely bunched. I'll post the June rankings in about  a month to let the dust settle.

Least viewed?

So many sources, so little time (May 5)


Harold Henderson, "Top Five MWM Posts for May 2012," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 1 July 2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

So many sources, so little time

I'm going to use this heading to accumulate sources that I run across when I'm supposed to be doing something else -- and because I kept on doing that something else, I can't tell you anything more about the sources than where they exist.

As far as I know, like most sources, they aren't on line. Some are immediately useful; some I have no idea what I would do with them, it's just wonderful that they're out there.

At Western Michigan University's Archives & Regional History Collections: microfilm, "Kalamazoo Airport Register, 1920-1941."

At the La Porte County (Indiana) Historical Museum, in a binder on the library shelves: Fern Eddy Schultz's 1987 map series of changing La Porte County and township boundaries, from the legal descriptions at the time. So far I have not found anything comparable on line (that is, a full series of documented maps showing a particular county's township boundaries and their changes), although this handsome Bay County, Michigan, site comes close.



"Kalamazoo Airport Register, 1920-1941," microfilm, Western Michigan University Archives & Regional History Collections, Kalamazoo.


Fern Eddy Schultz, historical boundary maps of La Porte County, Indiana, townships, 1987 binder; La Porte County Historical Museum, La Porte.


Marvin Kusmierz, "Michigan Map History Relevant to Bay County, Michigan," updated October 2005, Bay-Journal: Portal to the Past and Present of Michigan's Great Lakes Bay Region (http://www.bay-journal.com : accessed 23 April 2012).


Harold Henderson, “So many sources, so little time,” Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 5 May  2012 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you mention it on line.]

Illinois Civil and Congressional Township Maps

Woops -- I should have posted on this months ago. (Hat tip to Melissa Barker in the Transitional Genealogists forum for getting the ball rolling about maps the other day.) There's a central although well-hidden on line resource for maps of each Illinois county showing townships. If you're visiting in person, you have a good chance of finding such a map at the courthouse or library, one that will also include roads and landmarks, as I did in northwestern Illinois' Whiteside County last fall. If you're visiting virtually, you can get there in six easy steps:

(1) Visit the Illinois State Archives regional depositories page, maintained by the office of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.

(2) On the left-hand menu, click on the second tab down for "IRAD region map."

(3) That will bring up a colorful map of Illinois divided into seven regions, each festooned with the initials of the depository university. Click on your region of choice.

(4) That will bring up a close-up map of the region and its counties. Click on your county of choice.

(5) That will bring up a "_____ County Fact Sheet." Enjoy the facts; don't get too focused; but then scroll down a few screens to a thumbnail outline map of the county with subdivisions, which are the townships. (Hey, it's a big thumbnail.)

(6) Click on the thumbnail and presto, you have a printable map of the county and its townships. And when I say townships, I mean BOTH KINDS, the civil townships (with names you are or soon will become familiar with) and the congressional townships, with names like T36N R5E in La Salle County, which due to rivers that disobey the rectangular survey system, is not quite the same as the civil township of Northville.