Genealogy Resources at the NMU Archives - NMU Archives

Genealogy Resources at the NMU Archives

Doing research on ancestors who attended NMU or lived in the central Upper Peninsula? We have a number of collections that may be of use.

Below is a list of collections which are commonly utilized for genealogical research. It should be noted that ANY collection can contain information of use to genealogists. Researching the place and time in which your ancestor lived is crucial to genealogical research. Not only does it give you clues as to what records your ancestor may have generated, but it also gives you invaluable background information about what your ancestor’s life may have been like, which can’t be found in many standard genealogical sources. In addition, unexpected collections may mention your relatives! Try searching our collections for your ancestors’ names, or browse for topics that might be relevant to your research.

Central Upper Peninsula/Marquette County Government Records

Marquette County Naturalization Records, 1852-1971

Naturalization records document the process of becoming a US citizen. They are very valuable for genealogical research. Early records might only include the name and country of origin, but later records include the exact hometown of the individual, the names of their wife and children (typically, only adult men naturalized until the mid-1920s), their occupation, their address, the exact date of their immigration, the ship that they immigrated on, a description of their physical appearance, and the names of character witnesses. Occasionally, naturalization records have even included photographs! 

The NMU Archives has all of the naturalization records for Marquette County. This includes Declarations of Intention, Petitions for Naturalization, and Citizenship Certificates. Here is the index to our naturalization records. Click on Naturalization Records and then Marquette County. The index is organized alphabetically by last name.

Want to know about the steps of the naturalization process, different types of naturalization records, and why your ancestor might not have naturalized? Check out these articles:

• Article on the Naturalization Process
• Article on Women and Naturalization

Marquette County Court Case Records, 1852-1981

If you suspect that your ancestors were involved in court cases of any kind, or if you’re interested in finding out, we have indexes of court cases in Marquette County from 1852-1981. Court cases which occurred after 1981 can be located at the Marquette County Clerk’s Office. Because the court cases are stored off-site, we do need 24 hours’ notice to pull the records before your visit.

Civil Marriage Records, April 1893-2004

Marriage records are organized chronologically, so in order to find the record we will need an approximate date in addition to the names of the people getting married. If you do not know when the people that you are searching for were married, Family Search does have Michigan marriage records that you can search to get a date.

Coroner’s Inquests, 1879-1986

A coroner’s report was filed for any person who was murdered or died in a suspicious way (suicide, mining accident, etc.). The Coroner's Reports index is on UPLINK.

Marquette County and Central Upper Peninsula Tax Records, 1868-1985

These records can provide you with a legal description of your ancestor’s property and what kinds of taxes they paid. They are arranged alphabetically by township and then chronologically. To search them, we need the approximate location of their property. There is no index to the people in the records.

Church Records

We do not have records for every church in the area, but we do have some records for Bethany Lutheran Church in Ishpeming, the Episcopal Diocese of the UP, and the First Presbyterian Church of Marquette. If you are looking for another church's records, try contacting them directly.

Polk’s City Directories, 1912-2008

City directories can tell you where your ancestors lived and what occupations they had. The Marquette County Polk city directories are on UPLINK.

Newspapers

Newspapers can be invaluable sources of information for your genealogical research. They do not only contain articles about births, marriages, and deaths, but also provide background information about the town that your ancestor lived in. In addition, early newspapers in small towns often had columns for local news, and taking the time to read through these columns will often yield much entertainment as well as information about the daily life of your ancestor. Even if the town that your ancestor lived in did not have a newspaper, try looking at newspapers from surrounding towns. They often had sections devoted to other towns.

A list of digitized newspapers can be found in the Newspapers section of our UPLINK Resources Guide. A list of newspapers on microfilm is available in the Regional Newspapers finding aid.

Oral History Collections

The NMU Archives has conducted and houses many collections of oral history interviews. Notable collections include the Italian American oral history collection, the Women’s Center oral history collection, the Red Dust oral history project, and many more. Even if your ancestor was not one of the people interviewed for these projects, they are a great source of background information! 

Cleveland Cliffs Iron Mining Company (CCI) Records

Most of our records related to CCI are at the administrative level and do not mention individual employees. For employee records, contact the Cliffs Shaft Mining Museum. However, our Annual Reports do contain reports of mining accidents and we have a very limited set of pension records. We do have scattered payroll records for various mines and various years. Payroll records are simply organized by mine and year. If you are hoping to find a payroll record, plan to spend many hours searching through the books and know that you will only find the name of your ancestor and how much they were paid for that week. They are stored at our off-site storage and may take 1-2 days to pull.

​​Cemetery Records

The cemetery indexes were painstakingly created by Duane and Jacquelyn Hargis who were kind enough to donate them to the NMU Archives. They include the names organized alphabetically and by location, inscriptions on tombstone, dates, and locations. They also created general maps for some cemeteries. The records contain complete indexes for Schoolcraft, Alger, and Luce Counties and incomplete indexes for Mackinaw and Marquette counties. See the link above for more information about the records and to access the records online.

NMU Records

For a list of digital resources on NMU history, see the Northern Michigan University section on our UPLINK Resource Guides page. NMU newspapers and yearbooks are available online.

Physical records at the archives that are particularly useful for genealogy include the following:

• Alumni File, 1899-1960: This index card file does not contain every alumnus from 1899 to 1960. However, it is quite extensive. Information on each card varies, but photos and brief newspaper articles are common.
• Commencement Records: These records verify when your ancestor graduated from Northern. They also indicate whether they graduated with honors and sometimes what organizations they were involved in.
• Academic Transcripts: Academic transcripts are a great sources of information about your ancestor. Information on the transcripts includes their hometown, the name of their father, what classes they took, what grades they received, what their degree was, and when they attended Northern. The NMU Archives does not house the transcripts. To find NMU transcripts, please e-mail the Registrar’s Office at records@nmu.edu. You will need to provide proof that the person is deceased and that you are a close relative of the person in order to obtain their transcripts.