A typical courthouse vital record-hunting experience is described on companion pages. However, many counties have quirks nice to know about, sometimes even important to know about, ahead of time. In my visits to county courthouses in Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula to dig up vital records, I have noted information I thought people might like to know before their own trips. Below you will find information on unusual hours, brief directions to the courthouse if it seemed harder to find than usual, special restrictions on what can be done there, etc. Some counties have no notes because nothing stood out as atypical or unique. If you have a bit of information you think really should be noted here, or you find some information that is obsolete, please send an e-mail to the webmaster so that the page can be updated appropriately.
Many counties have links to information on the vital record indexes you'll find at their courthouses. If there is no link to specific index information for one of the counties, you can expect to find the standard set of indexes if you visit the courthouse.
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
The hours are 8:30 - 4:00 p.m. There is really only room for two people, but they sometimes allow three in. You are allowed two hours at a time, but may work longer if no one is waiting for your space. (Their Web site says only one hour, but I was told two when I was there.) Birth volumes from 227 to 93 VIII are restriced. Records from those books need to be shown by staff. If their assistance is required, it is available only from 8:30 - 11 and from 2:00 - 4:00. In other words, no viewing of records with confidential information between 11 AM and 2 PM. You must list the volume and page of all records which require staff assistance. Limit three per hour.
Directions: The courthouse is on State Hwy. 29 (Walnut Street) in downtown Green Bay.
Although the Register of Deeds office is not in the courthouse building, the interior of the courthouse is really quite spectacular, as impressive in its way as the interior of the State Capitol building. Don't skip the walk across the street to the courthouse!
The central branch of the Brown County Public Library is conveniently situated near the North Building and parking ramp, only four blocks from the North Building. To get there, leaving the North Building, walk left down Walnut. Cross Jefferson and go one more block to Madison Street. Go left on Madison, and walk up two blocks to Pine Street. The library is then across Pine Street on the right (i.e. at the intersection of Madison and Pine). The entrance to the parking ramp would be a block or so down Pine to your left, on the right side of the street. There isn't much parking at the library - stick with the parking ramp.
Vital Record Index Information
Birth records are on microfiche, sometimes a little hard to read.
To find the courthouse in Chilton, locate the intersection of U.S. 151 and County Hwy. 'F' on the main street. Proceed north (?) on 'F' a block or two. Turn left on Court Street, which comes into 'F' at an angle. The courthouse is on the right.
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
The hours are 8:00 - 4:30. Appointments are not required. Plenty of working space and easy to work there, especially considering how big the county population is. The Register of Deeds office is in the City-County Building at 210 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Madison, between East Wilson and Doty Streets, just a block south-east from the State Capitol Building. If you go in the main entrance, you just go straight ahead down the hall and take a left at the end into the Register of Deeds office.
For directions on just how to get to the City-County Building, you'd best consult a map. Too many options, depending on what direction you're coming from, to give directions here. And do get directions ahead of time - the city is too big and convoluted to take a guess on how to get there and there are no convenient places to stop and ask directions once you're on the main streets downtown because the streets are too busy. Watch out for lots of one-way streets in downtown Madison.
Parking can be difficult. For a visit of more than an hour you'll want to park in a ramp. Expect to pay about $1.25 per hour at the ramp. One nearby public parking ramp, named the Government East Ramp, is on East Wilson Street about two blocks north-east from the City-County Building. Wilson Street runs right by the City-County Building, on the other side of it from the Capitol (which is actually a block away but easy to see). Standing in front of the City-County Building's main entrance and facing directly away from the Capitol, you'll be facing Wilson Street, and the parking ramp would be to your left on the left side of Wilson down two or three blocks. Unfortunately East Wilson is one-way in the wrong direction to get there from the City-County Building. Here are two alternative methods to get to the ramp:
In the records room, many of the records from the 1920s and 1930s have been microfilmed, one volume of records per reel, and you have to view them on microfilm readers which are more convenient to use than the readers you're probably used to from elsewhere. The office personnel don't explain how to use the readers very well, though. If you need to use one of the microfilms, insert the reel into the reader the way the staff instructs you to, and wait for it to stop winding. Then use the keypad that's attached to the reader to enter the page number you got from the index. Press the "Enter" key on the keypad. The reader will then automatically advance the film to find the record for you. Pretty fancy technology. It's a little slower than looking up records in books directly, but not too bad.
The Wisconsin Historical Society is in Madison as well. The Society has tremendous holdings, including the largest collection of old newspapers in the U.S. outside of the Library of Congress and a really massive collection of city directories from all over Wisconsin and the U.S. The building is located on the east side of Park Street between University Avenue and Langdon. It's maybe a three-quarter-mile walk from the City-County Building. To walk it, just go up to the area around the Capitol building, a block from the City-County Building, and ask someone to direct you to where State Street is - one end of State runs right up to the Capitol. Walk the full length of State Street away from the Capitol to the far end. The Historical Society is about one block past the far end of State Street. State Street ends at Lake Street. You just keep walking straight across Lake Street and continue in the same direction; now you're on a pedestrian mall. Immediately after you cross Lake Street you'll find Memorial Library, which is the main library for UW-Madison, on your right. After that is a large open grassy area (also on the right), and the next building after that is the Historical Society, a big gray building on your right immediately before you hit the next large street (Park Street).
If the distance from the Capitol building to the Historical Society seems too far to walk, you can try to move the car to a parking ramp that's on Lake Street quite near the Historical Society building, if there's room in the ramp. To get to that ramp from the Capitol, drive counter-clockwise around the Capitol on the one-way streets until you are on the other side of the Capitol from the City-County Building. Turn right (away from the Capitol) at the stoplight at Wisconsin Avenue. Get in the left lane immediately. Then turn left on Gorham, a one-way street to the left. Get in the right driving lane (but watch out for a special bike lane on the far right!). A few blocks up, Gorham becomes University. Keep a sharp eye out and turn right on Lake Street; the parking ramp is on the right side of Lake in the first block off University. If you find yourself still on University and passing the stoplights at Park St. or going by Brooks, Mills, or a set of lights at Charter Street, or you start passing University buildings on your right, you went too far - Park Street is one block past Lake Street and the other streets I mentioned as well as the University campus are past Park. In that case, take two left turns to reverse your direction, stay on Johnson Street past Park Street, and then it would be a left on Lake Street immediately after you cross Park Street again, with the public parking ramp being up two blocks on your right.
If anything about those driving directions in Madison is confusing, compare them with a street map of the isthmus area of Madison.
Beware, parking is even more difficult near campus than it is downtown, including the area where the Historical Society building is located, especially when school is in session. The Lake Street parking ramp is close to campus and students commuting to classes often fill it up. However, if you wait at the gate you will eventually get in. If you arrive by 8:00 AM or even earlier you're much more likely to find a spot in the Lake Street Ramp without any trouble. Considering that driving around Madison is not fun for the uninitiated, rather than be moving your car from one ramp to another, on a weekday with good weather I'd recommend just walking from the City-County Building if you successfully found a parking place near there. Or, park at the Lake Street Ramp early in the morning (say 7:30 AM) and walk up to the City-County Building, and back later to take advantage of evening hours at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and then you're parked nearby when you leave the Historical Society. On the other hand, I parked in the Lake Street ramp at 1:30 PM only today with no trouble, and school is in session for the summer. Your choice! I'll mention that State Street which you'd be walking the length of is a well-known attraction of Madison. There are lots of interesting shops and many good restaurants along the way.
If you do park on Lake Street, to get to the Historical Society building all you have to do is walk up a block or so to State Street and turn left along the pedestrian mall. The Historical Society will be the last building on your right before you reach Park Street. To get to the City-County Building from there, you just walk all the way up State Street to the Capitol, then go right at the Capitol, take the first left to go around the Capitol, and then turn right at Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. and go up a block to find the City-County Building on the right.
The main branch of the Madison Public Library is only about four blocks' walk from the City-County Building and two blocks from the Capitol, at 201 West Mifflin St. They have a computerized obituary index of the Wisconsin State Journal from 1960 forward. The Wisconsin State Journal is Madison's main newspaper. It's published by the same company that also publishes the Capital Times, the other significant newspaper for the city, so the obituaries are the same in the two papers since they merged and this one index suffices for both papers. Also, there is a good genealogy collection at the Madison Public Library, which is detailed through the link. There are also many newspaper clippings from state and local papers arranged alphabetically by subject heading, including pamphlets and biographical clippings, which are located in the Local Materials Collection on the first floor of the library. Additional materials in the Local Materials storage area may be searched as well. For those materials, talk to a reference librarian at the reference desk on the first floor. The near-by Wisconsin Historical Society has the most complete research collections for genealogists in the state, but the public library has good books for beginners, numerous books on specialized genealogy topics such as researching genealogy of specific ethnic groups, useful reference books, plenty of material on Dane County and Madison, is sometimes open when the Historical Society is not, and the newspaper indexes and clippings make some of that sort of material much more accessible than at the Historical Society. It's definitely worth checking out.
While you're in Madison, if you've never been to the Capitol building, be sure to go in because it's beautiful. Tours are given from the information desk under the dome. The main part of the building is also open in the evenings and weekends.
A fire in 1877 destroyed birth, marriage, and death records from before that date, though the indexes still refer to the records (and give the dates of the events).
A list of genealogical resources in the area is present in the courthouse. It mentions two societies with extensive records for the area:
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
The clerks must bring you every volume of records after 1907.
Two very old books of records are unindexed and so unavailable to the public. They were spotted in a historical display case in 2005 and close examination showed they were the county's first book of marriages and the first book of deaths, and none of the records were indexed in the index books used for indexing into the early record books. Creating an index would be a small job, just a matter of several hours' time. Someone who lives in the county should volunteer to create that index for the Register of Deeds office unless the Register of Deeds intends to have her staff do it.
Vital Record Index Information
There is only room for two people at a time, maximum. You get one hour; if nobody else is waiting for space, you may work longer.
Vital Record Index Information
Clerks pull all the record books, one or two at a time. Small population makes for a quick scan of indexes.
Vital Record Index Information
Hours 8:00 - 4:15. You can only view five records with confidential information in a day.
There is a good set of fully alphabetized birth indexes for 1941-Recent on shelves in the room with the records which the clerks will probably not mention to you. They aren't with the rest of the index books, but make a point of finding and using them if you are looking at births.
The courthouse is in Fond du Lac, right on highway U.S. 151 as it meanders through town. It is located at the corner of Western and [Macy or Linden]. At this intersection, the highway turns the corner around the courthouse. Linden goes one direction along the courthouse, while Macy goes in exactly the opposite direction from Linden, away from the courthouse.
Vital Record Index Information
Low population allows quick searches.
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
Small population and some alphabetized indexes make for quick searches.
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
Besides the courthouse, significant resources for Jefferson County are available through these two organizations:
Vital Record Index Information
The Algoma Public Library has some information pertinent to genealogy.
Vital Record Index Information
For the earliest marriages, you need the groom's name and the record number from the index; then they get you the original certificate instead of you looking at a marriage registration book.
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
Hours:
Vital Record Index Information
Separate indexes in every small book make extensive searches over wide year ranges tedious. Hours are 8:30 - 11:30 and 12:30 - 3:30.
Milwaukee County has the most complex rules for genealogists in the state. You should view the 2005 version of the rules from the Milwaukee County Register of Deeds office by following the link before you make plans to go to the Milwaukee County Courthouse. A summary of very significant rules is:
Most of the records through 1930 are in about three thousand fairly small books, each book on a separate shelf. The shelves go higher than those of us who are height-challenged can reach, and it is necessary to use a footstool or a very sturdy metal stepladder with railings which the office provides in order to get about 20% of them. Those who are unsteady on their legs should probably not risk the ladder - but the office personnel there will not get a book down for you. The index books, at least, are not on the shelves.
Some of the books seem to sit on the shelves for many months without being touched - the dust on them can be incredibly thick. If you're allergic to dust, take preventative action before you start pulling books off the shelves.
Parking around the courthouse is not cheap. The courthouse is right downtown in the city. There is a large parking ramp on James Lovell Street about two blocks from the courthouse, right next to the big James Lovell Museum of Technology and Innovation - parking is $8 for two to four hours, $9 for five to ten hours or so. There are cheaper places down there, though, if you can find a spot. This ramp seems always to have space.
Here are directions to the courthouse, coming from the west on I-94 - from the north or south, directions are probably slightly different. Take I-94 to downtown Milwaukee. From where I-43 and I-94 intersect, take I-794 East. Get off immediately at the right-side exit marked Civic Center / J. Lovell St. On that ramp, keep to the left, for you then immediately take a left-side exit marked James Lovell St. That will shoot you out directly onto James Lovell Street (no stop sign). Just keep going straight on James Lovell. Most of the streets going north-south are numbered in that area. James Lovell Street, upon which the parking lot mentioned above is located, is a north-south street and would be 7th Street had the name not been changed at some point. Travelling on James Lovell Street, keep an eye out for Wisconsin St., then Wells St., and for the Milwaukee public museum just on the other side of Wells, on the left. These are only a few blocks off the interstate. To spot the public museum easily, look for the IMAX theater which is attached to the museum and stands on the far left corner of Wells and James Lovell. The upper part of the exterior is dark brown with big letters "IMAX" on the outside. Immediately past the big museum building is the parking ramp. The address of the courthouse is 901 N. Ninth St., at the corner of Ninth Street and Wells. Coming from the Interstate as I just described, it's just two blocks to your left from James Lovell. From the museum, just walk a couple of blocks up Wells towards Ninth St. and it will be on your right.
There is a cheaper parking lot on the right side of James Lovell just after you get off the highway, a couple of blocks before you get to Wells St., but it probably would be full unless you get there pretty early.
The courthouse building is absolutely huge, incredibly imposing, mostly of a gray stone with gigantic Greek-style columns, also of stone. There are two entrances to the courthouse you can use. If you're walking up Wells St., go in the entrance off Wells Street. From there, you go up one floor to get to the Register of Deeds' office. If you're coming from the other side of the courthouse, walk up Ninth Street towards Wells and go under the tunnel-like bridge over Ninth Street. The Ninth Street entrance is just on the other side of the tunnel. It doesn't really look like an entrance to the courthouse and you can't see it from any distance away; you just have to know it's there. From that entrance you have to go up two or three floors to get to the Register of Deeds office.
There is very tight security going into the courthouse. You have to put all your metal items on a conveyor belt for X-raying and walk through an airport-style metal detector gate. After you go through the X-Ray gate, they'll also wand you, front and back.
The Register of Deeds office is in Room 103. If you've made an appointment you should find "Window 1" there - it looks like a teller's window with glass between you and the clerk - and move a little to the right where there is a small metal gate leading to the clerk's area. That's where you should wait for someone to take you back to the records area.They are very strict about people leaving promptly to the minute when their appointment is over, and they aren't happy if they have to remind you. If you come in the morning, don't waste your time asking if you can stay into the afternoon if nobody else is coming in - it's against their policy and they don't deviate as far as I can tell.
Although they require appointments, they seem to have some sort of informal policy by which a person may come in for 15 minutes without an appointment to look at records. However, they do not let it turn into 30 minutes! About all you can do with 15 minutes is find a single record if you know the exact surname and the year in which the event occurred. There isn't enough time to perform any kind of an index search over twenty years' entries, because the indexes in Milwaukee County are huge with several pages for every year. If you don't have the name and the year to let you find the entry very quickly, you'll have to make the appointment. Also, I'd recommend calling ahead to verify that they'll let you in for a few minutes without an appointment. If you wanted to actually look at the record while you were there, you'd have to make sure you arrived during the hours in which they will pull records for people to look at. Otherwise all your 15 minutes would get you would be the exact date and the record number to give the clerks another day. The 15-minute visit rule is not meant to become a normal mode of activity for people - they need to have people make appointments so the office doesn't become a zoo where they can't get their regular vital records work done.
There is one detail about their rules they don't spell out very well. The records from 1931 onwards are not in books at all. They are folded and placed separately in drawers. When you give them a list of those records to look at, they get them out of the drawers. When you are done with them, you give them back to be refiled. However, you don't take them back to Window 1 and wait in line to hand them back as one might guess from the published rules. Rather, you go back to the counter where the little metal gate is and place the records you're done with at the end of the counter right next to the gate, where the calendar with the appointment schedule is kept. This keeps you and the records always on the same side of the counter as the the record drawers, books, and indexes. You do not go out the gate with the records in hand, to the other side of the counter - they really don't like that!
The central branch of the Milwaukee Public Library is only two blocks from the courthouse - a really beautiful building and historic landmark, as well as the largest public library in the state. Walk back up to James Lovell, and then right on James Lovell. It's two blocks over. There are extensive holdings of genealogical interest in the Humanities section (partial listing). In the Periodicals room there is a monster index of the Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper for the years 1837-1890, the biggest index of a newspaper I've ever seen by far. Probably several hundred thousand articles are indexed, many by name of person involved in the article (far more than just obituaries, which are actually a little sparse relative to other types of articles). The territory covered by the articles in the index is far more than just Milwaukee County - it seems to be the whole southern half of Wisconsin and more.
The Milwaukee County Genealogical Society has indexed and made available a number of marriage records from Milwaukee, Washington, and Waukesha counties which are not to be found at the county courthouses. See the Milwaukee Marriage Indexing Project for details.
Vital Record Index Information
The clerks must pull every single record book you want to look at, and they will only pull books between the hours of 9-10 a.m. and 2-3 p.m. The indexes can be used outside of those hours, though.
Hours are 9 - 12 and 1 - 4. You must make an appointment - they won't let you in if you didn't make one. Call 920-832-5095 to make an appointment. Only two people at once, max. They prefer only half-days but they may possibly let you stay a full day and work through the noon hour if you are quiet and are from out of town. Don't count on that, though - that's not their official policy.
There is a particular confusion with a couple of the index books. In Marriage Index Book 2, the brides' names are not listed at all. However, those marriages are listed again in Book 3, this time listed with the brides' names. Marriage Index Book 1 also does not list the brides' names at all, but those marriages were not re-indexed later with the brides' names. A volunteer is badly needed to create good indexes for at least the early marriages.
Directions: The Register of Deeds office is at the courthouse at 410 S. Walnut Street, Appleton. From U.S. Hwy 41, take the exit for State Hwy 114 - Co. Hwy JJ - Winneconne Avenue. Go east (or north) towards downtown. About one mile up, follow Hwy 114 and turn left at Commercial Avenue. Go up four blocks or so and turn right on either Columbia or Doty. (Don't stay on Commercial all the way across the bridge over the Fox River - that's too far.) The first street you come to will be Walnut. The courthouse should be right there on the near side of Walnut.
Vital Record Index Information
The marriages index is fully computerized. The death index is only via a card file. The birth index is in the process of being computerized, and both the computer and the birth card file should be consulted. Eventually everything will be computerized.
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
Hours are 8:00 - 4:00.
The first two index books for marriages are without a doubt the hardest to scan for brides' names of any in the state - new indexes from a local volunteer person or organization are sorely needed!
Vital Record Index Information
Hours are Monday through Thursday 9 - 11:30 a.m. and 1 - 3:30 p.m. There are no brides' indexes for marriages in any time period, and the size of the indexes makes it virtually impossible to scan all the index books for a surname and copy more than a few records in one day, given the restrictive hours. If your task is smaller the time may be adequate. To request that additional hours in a day be made available, write:
Cynthia Wisinski
Portage County Register of Deeds
1516 Church Street
Stevens Point, WI 54481
You must make an appointment the first time you go to the Register of Deeds office for genealogy:
To get to the courthouse, take I-94 towards Racine. Take the Hwy 20 East exit. Follow Hwy 20 downtown. It becomes Washington Avenue. You'll follow signs for Hwy 20 and the downtown area and eventually turn right off of Washington onto 7th street. Right after you turn onto 7th Street, you'll see a big solid-looking gray building on the left that looks like it's probably the courthouse building - except it's not, it's the Racine City Hall. Ignore it. Continue further down 7th. The courthouse is a tall gray building on the right, maybe eight stories high, on Wisconsin Avenue between 6th and 7th St., only a couple of blocks before 7th Street comes to an end. You can't see the courthouse very well until you're right next to it because of a tall church that's across the street in front of it, and the courthouse is set back away from the street a bit. It may be easier to spot the modern-looking Racine County Law Enforcement Center on the right just past Wisconsin, and then the courthouse is immediately before that.
To get back to I-94 after you're done at the courthouse, you'll take the one-way 6th Street (still Hwy 20) back to Washington and turn left.
Parking at the courthouse is with 2-hour and 4-hour meters, at $0.40 per hour (in 2005). There is free parking on residential streets only a block or two away.
The indexes are computerized after 1993. You must request permission before using the computer. The oldest indexes are a little confusing. Ignore the non-alphabetical index books for 1837-1875 and 1875-1879. For those years, use the alphabetical index book for 1837-1879. (Sorry, I didn't note if that was birth, marriage, or death indexes.)
Vital Record Index Information
Vital Record Index Information
Rusk County was formed from parts of Chippewa and Bayfield counties, and the vital records were not integrated to form a cohesive set of records for the new county. The indexes and records are in a frightfully disorganized state so it's confusing to use them. One index seems to have references to a book that simply does not exist there, though it appears it should. The population is small, so searches don't take long once you get past the confusion of the books.
Hours 8 - 5. Most marriage records from 1966 - 1996 have confidentail information so clerks must show them.
The marriage indexes are very tedious to scan for brides because of their arrangement, though if you know the year of the marriage the arrangement is advantageous when compared to regular index books.
Vital Record Index Information
In Sheboygan you must leave your purses, briefcases, etc. outside the vital records area. The county can be difficult to work in if you need records with confidential information. Staff must be present to show you any records with confidential information, and they set a 15-minute timer. After the 15 minutes is up, the staff person must go back to their regular work. They won't let you look at "just one more record," etc. If you are in the middle of looking at a record when the timer goes off, you have to come back another day to finish looking at it. I was able to copy the information from five marriage records in 15 minutes, working as quickly as possible.
Hours are 8:00 - 5:00 for looking at indexes. However, no actual records may be viewed before 8:30, after 4:30, or from 12:00 - 1:30. (That is, records may be viewed 8:30 - 12:00 and 1:30 - 4:30.) There are two time periods for looking at records with confidential information: 9:00 - 11:00 and 2:00 - 4:00. A person may request 15 minutes of staff assistance in the morning and another 15 minutes in the afternoon. If the office staff is too busy, they may tell you there is no one who can help you view the records that day, so you won't be able to look.
There is a maximum of four people doing genealogy in the records area at any time.
Directions to the Register of Deeds' office: From I-43, exit Highway 23 East to Sheboygan. The road becomes Kohler Memorial Highway, then turns into Erie Street. Keep going until you get to Sixth Street and turn right on Sixth. Go up several blocks. Turn left on New York Street. The old courthouse will be on your right. However, the Register of Deeds office is in an annex building at the end of the street on your left.
Vital Record Index Information
Incredibly, the rule there is a person can't bring anything into the records area, not even paper! At least that was what the clerk I spoke with believed. She did at least relent to let me bring blank forms in with pencils.
Vital Record Index Information
Hours 8:00 - 5:00.
Directions from Madison (The phrase "you can't get there from here" comes to mind...): Take I-90 East towards Chicago. Just north of Janesville, exit to U.S. 14 East. One or two miles up, turn left at the stoplight at County Hwy A. Follow County A for 19.3 miles to the village of Tibbets. There, turn right onto County Hwy H. Follow Hwy H all the way into Elkhorn. It becomes Church Street. Church Street goes straight to the courthouse, which will be a wide two-story modern gray building on the left, in a large grassy square at the center of town. It's a one-hour drive from Madison.
Vital Record Index Information
The Register of Deeds office is in the County Administration Center in West Bend. Those offices are on Highway 33 on the eastern outskirts of town.
The Hartford History Room in Hartford, WI has some resources for Washington County.
Vital Record Index Information
The Register of Deeds office is in a new courthouse building at the County Administration Center. Take exit 194 (County Hwy J) off of highway I-94. Go south towards Waukesha. As you get into town you will see a sign pointing the way to the courthouse. Continuing to follow the sign directions, you will turn right at a stoplight (Moorland Road). After the turn, the building with the Register of Deeds office is immediately on your left. Park in a parking lot across the street on your right. Ask for directions to the Register of Deeds office at the information window at the main entrance.
The early marriage indexes are a little confused. They were gathered together by volunteers and published with alphabetized entries in a modern, nicely-bound book which the clerk can let you use. Unfortunately at some stage of preparation for printing the volume and page numbers in the new index got totally goofed up and are meaningless. Use the alphabetical index for early marriages to see what's there, then find where the records are located by looking in the original marriage index books. Dates from the published book may make it easier to find the entries in the old books. The new published book also shows many fields of data for each record, but middle names, occupations, officiant's names and witnesses are not included, so you need to look at the original records for that information.
All the records after 1907 have been scanned into the computer and there is a fully computerized index for after that year. The images of the records themselves tend to be a little difficult to read. If you can't make something out, the staff can print a much clearer copy off the printer for you to look at, which you do not have to pay for but must return to them when you are done looking at it.
Vital Record Index Information
Hours 8 - 4:30. Only space for two people at a time. You are allowed two hours, and then if nobody else wants space, you may search longer. You can't pull records off the shelves yourself - you have to give a list of records to look at, all at the same time, to the clerk, who gets them for you.
There are great alphabetical indexes for records to 1912, but many standard index volumes for later records due to high population make extensive index searches relatively time-consuming. All birth and marriage records after the mid-1960s up to the '90s are in a back room and the clerks have to show them to you, waiting while you look.
Directions to the courthouse:
The Oshkosh Public Library has good resources for genealogists, including printed obituary indexes, the statewide index for pre-1907 vital records on microfiche, local papers on microfilm and other materials, and the library Web site also has other useful local links. The library also has an on-line obituary index.
Vital Record Index Information
No genealogy on the first and last business days of each month.
Directions to courthouse, from heading north on highway 13: turn left on Grand, then right at the first light. The road winds around. Courthouse is a very large gray stone building not too far up the road on the right. There is no sign in front - the words "Wood County Courthouse" are cut into the stone high on the building, but are not especially visible even if you're looking for them. Just look for the big gray stone building.
Vital Record Index Information
There are two problems with the indexes in Alger County. First, the marriage index from 1950 onwards is an index card system, and there are no cards filed in order by the bride's name. You are given access to all the cards, but going through the entire file checking the bride's name on every single card is far too time-consuming. The index might as well be one that doesn't list the brides' names at all, from a genealogist's point of view. The other problem is water damage stemming from a fire in 1970. Most cards were unaffected, but a percentage of the cards from before 1970 are illegible. The county does not have adequate indexes and badly needs volunteers from the county to create a good index. The population of the county is relatively low so the task is not so large - all that's needed are people to do it.
Good indexes and small population make work go quickly. Slightly confusing method of accessing death records - they are in books arranged by township or other civil division, which would have made it difficult for a few of the records I looked for were it not for having the clerks to ask questions of. But the clerks were glad to help.
Hours are Tues-Wed-Thu 9:30 - 11:30 and 1:30 - 3:30. Closed to genealogists on Mondays and Fridays.
Vital Record Index Information
There is only room for two genealogists, and those with appointments are given preference. Appointments are recommended in the summer.
The brides' names aren't even shown in any of the marriage index entries for any time period, even the modern entries. This county is badly in need of a volunteer to go in and create good marriage indexes for everyone to use.
There was a fire in the courthouse, and many records from 1880 to 1890 were destroyed. They are still referenced with dates in the index volume, though. There is a $2.00 per day fee to do genealogy there, which you pay at the County Clerk's office when you go in.
The Marquette County Historical Society's building is very close to the courthouse and has tremendous resources for genealogists. The public library has a great publication on file, published by the local historical society, detailing all the sources of genealogically-relevant information at townships and other organizations in the county.