Considering Courthouses

Last week I took a whirlwind tour of my beloved state of Michigan, packing two weeks' worth of research into five days. During this time I visited four county courthouses, one probate court, one historical museum, two public libraries, one state library, and four cemeteries. While I've been aware for a long time that each state has its own rules about who can access vital records, this was my first experience dealing with several county courthouses within the same state.

1. On Monday, July 6, I drove to Gaylord, the county seat of Otsego County, Michigan. My first stop was the probate court. Their website did not give any open hours, so I guessed that they would be open by 10 am.

I went to the counter and requested the two wills I was interested in (that I knew existed because of legal notices published in the newspaper, which I found on the Otsego County Library website). Willis Townsend (a noted and respected attorney) died in 1936, and his wife Fannie Augusta (Beem) Townsend died in 1947. The clerk went back to the computer to check, and came back to inform me that those wills were on microfilm, the originals having been destroyed in 1963. (Yes, I winced.) I was in luck - the courier had not yet left, so the probate court could send the microfilm over to the county courthouse, where I could view it any time after 1 pm.

So I spent the duration going to the public library, where I spent half an hour going through several local history books without finding any mention of the Townsends. I had lunch, and drove around the cemetery (no luck there). I also stopped by the Congregational Church the Townsends attended.

I got to the courthouse at 1 pm, and at first was not sure I was in the right place. This was a different architecture than I had ever seen in a county building:

I went to the county clerk's office, requested the microfilm, and sat down at the microfilm reader. The first will I looked at was Willis Townsend's. Since he was an attorney who had lived in Gaylord for decades, I expected a fairly sizable estate. I soon found his probate records, and you can see the poor quality of the microfilm:

When I got to the will itself, I viewed page 1, then page 2. That second page ended in the middle of a sentence, and there was no page 3, 4 or 5. The originals are no longer available, having been destroyed at the time of microfilming.

2. The following day, Tuesday, July 7, I drove to the Manistee County Courthouse. This is a building that I have visited several times; my first time researching there was while I was in college in 1976. Their website  made it quite clear that although the county clerk's office opened at 8:30 am, genealogy research hours were restricted to 10-11:30 am and 1:30-4 pm. Signs posted in the office prohibited any photographing, copying, or tracing of any entries in the ledger books.

There were several restrictions to what I could look at. Births more recent than 100 years ago were restricted; I would need a death certificate in order to get a copy of recent births. The ledgers of birth records were not available to view, even older than 100 years ago, because the dates overlapped. In order to have them search for a 1908 birth, I paid $5 for the search, $13 for a typewritten transcribed record, and $1.50 for using my debit card to pay for it.

As far as I could tell, there were no restrictions on deaths or marriages; I searched successfully for 1926, 1939 and 1943 marriages. Although I should note that the 1943 marriage of Gayle (Thompson) Boucher and Robert McKinley was not indexed (I checked multiple times), but was listed in the marriage ledger.

3. On Wednesday, July 8, I drove to Charlevoix, the county seat of Charlevoix county. On the way I enjoyed fabulous views of Grand Traverse Bay:

At the Charlevoix County Building (which took some maneuvering to get to, as surrounding streets were blocked off for road work), there seemed to be no restriction on what birth records I could look at. I checked the birth & death indexes (which were in front of the ledgers, not separate index books) for my name of interest (Kubiak and variations) for 1890 to 1920, with no results. When I asked for the marriage records, I found that those were restricted, no matter what the year. The clerk did not charge me for her to do a look-up on her computer; the only marriage with that name was in 1999. I probably spend a total of 20 minutes in this office.

4. Friday, July 10 found me back in southern Michigan, at the Hillsdale County Courthouse, which I also visited in 1976.

Although the county clerk's office was tiny (with only a narrow counter and nowhere to sit down and look at records), they were by far the most helpful. I was there with a cousin, and we told them the names we were interested in (Beam, Beem and Townsend), and they helpfully printed out separate lists of births, marriages and deaths:

Marriages and deaths were listed right up to the present day, and births seemed to stop at 1914, one hundred years ago.

When we asked for a particular ledger, they brought it out and placed it on the counter for us to examine. When I asked hesitantly if it was all right to take photos, the answer was, "Of course!" I told them that of all the county clerks' offices I had visited that week, they were by far the friendliest and most helpful.

After thinking about this week of research, I have realized that although I did my homework ahead of time, researching the county clerk's websites, locations, open hours, address and phone numbers, that was not enough. My preparation would have been more complete if I had called ahead of time to find out 1. What years are available (or restricted) for viewing, 2. The cost for a look-up of a restricted record, 3. The office hours for genealogical research, and 4. Whether or not I could take photographs of original records.


Summary: Do your homework before you visit!