Find your people
Who were they, and where is it written? Three questions, and the record finder shows where to look.
Everyone who lived in the valley left a trail of paper: a census line, a deed, a notice in the weekly paper, a name on a stone. Answer three questions and the record finder lists where to look first, on this site and in the free collections, and which county office keeps the books.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere unless you share the link yourself; a shared link carries your three answers and the surname, if you typed one. The page’s own address never holds the surname. The list is a starting order, not a guarantee: records were lost, burned or never kept in some places and years. The records page has the rest.
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New to family research? Start here
- Write down what you know. Names, dates and places, and how you know each one: a certificate, a Bible, a story. Mark the guesses as guesses.
- Work backward, one generation at a time. Start with the death record of the person you know least about; it names parents and a birthplace. How to read a death certificate.
- Find them in every census. Each one adds a fact; the gaps tell you where to look next. The record finder above lists where the census and the county books are.
- Learn the old words and the old hand. The glossary and reading the old hand explain what the clerks wrote.
- Weigh what you find. Two records that disagree are a clue, not a failure. The practice case shows how, and the toolkit has the calculators.
Burials and obituaries: see where the records are. Stuck? Ask the desk, or hire the research desk.
The people tools
- Who was in townNames from the old directories and rolls of the valley’s towns, searched all at once.
- Soldiers of the valleyCompany D, Sixth Michigan Infantry, and the valley’s other soldiers.
- FamiliesFamily histories from the valley, with their sources.
- Where the records areThe free sources we search first, at home and abroad.
- The sources shelfThe books and maps this site is built from.
- Reading old handwritingThe long s, the clerks’ shorthand, and the letters that fool everyone.
- Reading a death certificateWhat each box means and which answers to trust.
- Reading old gravestonesDates, symbols and the stones that are hard to read.
- Research rooms near youLibraries, archives and societies in the museums directory: filter by “Help for researchers”.
Three habits that find more
- Spell it every way. Clerks wrote what they heard. Try the name as it sounds.
- Read the neighbours. The families on either side in a census are often in-laws; the witnesses to a deed are often kin.
- Go back to the original. An index finds the record. The record itself is the evidence.
Found someone who belongs on this site? Tell us, with the record that shows it.