About
Project Scroll™ A history hunt.
Every clue is true™. Every answer is in the record.
Project Scroll is independent historical research: an online treasure hunt anyone can play, a research desk anyone can hire, and a studio for digital imaging, design, photography, 3D LiDAR, animation and video. All of it runs on one rule.
- Findings in the register
- 183
- Research notes
- 12
- Stories, every one sourced
- 65
- Open cases on the board
- 10
Three things we do
Every commission starts with an honest first read: what can be done, and what it will take, before you commit to anything.
Free to play
The hunt
A treasure hunt through real history. Every clue is true, every answer is in the record, and nobody ever has to dig, trespass or knock on a door.
Hire us
The research desk
Lost ancestors, family histories and registers, family legends tested against the record, forgotten places, heirlooms, lodges and old societies, research for authors, films and local groups, and a second pair of eyes on anything you mean to publish.
Imaging, design, 3D and film
The studio
Digital imaging and imaging analysis, restoration, graphic and web design, photography, video, landscapes modelled in 3D from public LiDAR surveys, and living documents that grow as new evidence turns up.
Who we are
Project Scroll is the work of Michael Urbanski, an independent historian and author who writes narrative nonfiction about the history of the St. Joseph River Valley of southwest Michigan and northern Indiana, and who trained in visual communications.
The research behind that writing is the same research we offer you: old certificates, deeds, surveys, county histories and newspapers, read line by line and compared until they agree, or until we can say exactly why they don’t.
- Read it line by lineOn the page image, not a transcription.
- Compare the witnessesUntil they agree, or until we can say why they don’t.
- Mark what it provesDocumented, a reading, or still open.
What we believe
- The record decides.
Not the family tree online, not the story everybody tells, not what we hoped to find.
- Every statement is marked.
Each one carries a Scrollsign™, so you can always see whether a fact comes from a document, a book, a family story or our own reading. What the Scrollsigns mean.
- Gaps are shown, not filled.
An honest “not yet known” is worth more than a confident guess.
- Corrections are welcome.
If you know better, tell us. The record is bigger than any one of us.
- Places and people are respected.
The hunt never asks anyone to dig, to disturb a grave or a mound, or to go looking for anyone’s home.
When we get something wrong
We will.
When a reader or a new document shows that a page of this site is mistaken, we change the page, date the change on it, and say what was wrong, rather than quietly replacing the words. A case that was called solved on a bad reading is reopened and says so. Corrections are credited to the person who sent them, by name or not, as they prefer.
The record behind this site
The dates on the scroll, the person of the month and the then-and-now maps are built from the same sources the hunt asks you to open. Where a page of this site makes a claim, the source is on the page or one click away. If it is not, that is a correction we owe.
- Rogers, History of Cass County (1875)
- Mathews, History of Cass County (1882)
- Glover, A Twentieth Century History of Cass County (1906)
- The 1860 county wall map, Library of Congress
- Michigan death certificates, Archives of Michigan
Where it started
Project Scroll began in Cassopolis, Michigan, with a few questions the county history couldn’t answer. It doesn’t stop there. The hunt and the desk now take on questions from anywhere the records reach.
Play the huntResearch servicesImaging, design and videoGet in touch