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

Vermilion County Harvest in Illinois

Vermilion County, Illinois, histories recently digitzed by Illinois Harvest:

The Centennial Book, Vermillion [sic] County, Illinois. [S.l.: s.n.], 1926. 128 pages.

Tuggle, L. A. Stories of Historical Days in Vermilion County, Illinois. Danville: Interstate Printing Co., 1934? 103 pages.

Souvenir Book of Rossville, Illinois Centennial, 1859-1959. Rossville: 1959. 88 pages.

Hathaway, Louise G. The Mann's Chapel Country. Rossville: Mann's Chapel Restoration Committee, 1959. 20 pages.

Cannon, Dick. Centennial, Fithian, Illinois, 1870-1970. Fithian: Fithian Centennial Book Committee, 1970. 127 pages.

Hoopeston Centennial. [S.l.]: The Corporation, 1971. Unpaginated.

Centennial Celebration, Westville, Illinois, 1873-1973. Westville, 1973. Unpaginated.

Potomac, The Artesian Village. Potomac: Centennial Committee, 1976? 147 pages.

Illinois Harvest -- again with the digitized local histories, post 4

Bluffs Yesterday and Today 1871-1971 (Bluffs: Jones Publishing Co., [1971]). Am I just prejudiced against the more recent local histories? Do they provide as much genealogical "meat" as the older ones? Bluffs is on the Illinois River in Scott County.

Cisco, Illinois, 1874-1974, by Cisco Centennial History Committee. I hope this one is good; it's about the Piatt County hamlet where my mom's only sister was born.

Stories of a Prairie Town: History of Rankin, Illinois - Vermilion Co., Rts. 9 & 49 (Rankin: Rankin Central Historical Committee, 1972)

Scrap Book: Amos Williams & Early Danville, Illinois, by "his Woodbury grandchildren" (Danville: Press of Recording & Statistical Corp., [1935?]). Typescript.

Chenoa Community Centennial: A Century of Co-operation, 1854-1954, by Chenoa Centennial Committee

Invitation to some inquests

Thanks to my Pittsburgh friend (and 5th cousin once removed) Jan for pointing out a post by Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist. (It's blog "for genealogists who like to write, and writers who happen to be genealogists!" -- how did I miss that one?) Lisa writes about The University of Pittsburgh Archive Services Center's Coroner Case File Project, preserving and making available Allegheny County coroner's inquest files from 1887 to 1973.

She's hoping that one o f these files will shed light on a probable murder among her relatives, but from some of the comments in the accompanying wiki I wouldn't count on it. One browser of the files reports, "I think that some of my case files [more than 100 years ago] that were ruled suicides were actually misdiagnosed or just plain wrong. In one file a man was found in the Allegheny River, his feet bound and stab wounds in his chest. The coroner ruled it a suicide..." Moral: always evaluate official sources with a wary eye.

These files are an unusual source for unusual circumstances (or, perhaps, for historical background). Similar files covering shorter time spans are also available through the Illinois State Archives' regional depositories for the Illinois counties of Cook, DeWitt, Macoupin, Vermilion, and Wayne.