Saginaw County Michigan

Saginaw County is located in eastern mid-Michigan. It is comprised of 812 square miles. The county was first settled in 1816 and incorporated in 1857 from the parent county of Oakland. The county seat is the city of Saginaw. The Sauk Indians first inhabited this land. O-Sag-A-Nog means "land of the Sauks". The Sauk Indian tribes fled the area to escape the Iroquois. Eventually the land was occupied by the Chippewa, with whom Governor Lewis Cass signed the Treaty of Saginaw in 1819. This treaty ceded most of the eastern half of Michigan's lower peninsula to the United States Government. Fur trading was an important first industry for Saginaw. By 1864, there were 61 lumber mills operating in the Saginaw River Valley. Saginaw County boasts over 600 miles of streams and rivers.

Jeffrey Fellows jdFellows@webtv.net writes the following information for us. The name Saginaw is not named for the Sauk's that were thought to inhabit the area. Newer research has proven Sauks did not inhabit the region though they may have visited. The real source of the name Saginaw is from the Iroquois word sag-en-a which means "to flow from". You can check this by reading historical books about Bay and Saginaw counties by Dr. Jeremy Kilar. As a local history buff this informationis current but widely know to many in the area.

I wish to thank all who have made this Saginaw county site a success. My name is Lesley Moss and I am your county coordinator. Cary Shaw is the new assistant county coordinator. Any comments or suggestions can be sent to our e-mail address. Please put Saginaw County in the subject line, because I have a very full mailbox and I want to answer your email promptly. If you have any information on the people of Saginaw County, please let me know so that this web page will grow and become a valuable resource for those people researching their ancestors in Saginaw County.

Get involved - we need you! I hope you enjoy your visit and - come back soon !

Vital Records

The individuals of the GENDIS project have been transcribing the death files from the state of Michigan from 1867 to 1874. This is not just an index! Names, dates of birth (sometimes) and dates of death as well as cause of death and parents names are available. http://www.mdch.state.mi.us/PHA/OSR/gendis/index.htm

Early Saginaw County Deaths

Newspapers

Check out this neat project called The Obituary Daily Times that is in the process of indexing obits from all over the world. You can be a part of this project.

Visit the Saginaw County Surname, Query and Researchers Index - to see the names submitted by those researching in Saginaw County thru Oct of 1998.

Visit the Saginaw Area Obituary Index
a wealth of genealogical information can be found in an obituary a number of obituaries for Saginaw county residents are here.

Public Libraries of Saginaw have an online obituary index. This is an index for obituaries that were in Saginaw newspapers. The last 25-30 years are indexed totally, with numerous older obituaries dating back to the 1800’s that we had reference to from other sources. They are working backwards and the index is updated quarterly. This index can be accessed by clicking on the genealogical information section on the library’s web page at: www.saginaw.lib.mi.us

The Saginaw News Obituaries by Michigan Live - Saginaw Edition

Saginaw County Naturalization Records

Naturalization records are available for Saginaw Co. on microfilm at the Hoyt Library, 505 Janes, Saginaw, MI 48607--Tel. # 517-7550904. Ask for the genealogy dept. and they will tell you the years that are included.

The State Archives in Lansing have Saginaw County Naturalization Records. http://www.sos.state.mi.us/history/archive/referenc.html

Research Strategies for Saginaw County

If you are having problems locating birth, marriages, deaths or burials, be sure to check out the counties that border Saginaw County. Saginaw County is bordered on the north by Midland and Bay Counties, on the south by Shiawassee and Genesee Counties, on the east by Tuscola County and on the west by Gratiot County.

In later years, when hospitals became more accessible, fewer people were actually dying at home. When an individual dies in a hospital the death record is filed in the county where the death occurred. Those death records were not always sent back to the original county of the person’s residence. Occasionally, the county clerk of the county where the death occurred would send a courtesy copy to the county court of residence.

Success Stories and "Warm Fuzzies" - Please let me know if your search for Saginaw County ancestors was successful with the help of this page. I will post those "success stories" here. We all need an occasional incentive to "keep on looking".

Saginaw County Families and Communities "On the Web" - do you have a web page with links to Ionia County? I would love to link to it here. Please let me know.

"The Doersams of Waterloo County, Ontario, Canada" John Doersam relocated to Saginaw in the 1880's.
There is also information about the following Saginaw Co. surnames: Altscheffel, Baumann, Blohm, Faulkner, Gackel, Howard, McCart, Picard
and more.

WAZNY HAMP Family Pages

Do you have any Saginaw County birth notices, marriage / anniversary articles or death notices from newspapers or certificates? E-mail them to me and I will post and index them here. (Please remember, to protect the privacy of living individuals - do not ask me to post information about living persons)

Births

Marriage / Anniversary

Death

Cemeteries

Churches

Early Saginaw History

Historical Societies and Historians

Libraries

Schools in Saginaw County

Saginaw County Communities and Townships

CENSUS INFORMATION

Census Records

The 1850 Federal Census for Saginaw County, Michigan is now on-line.
   View the actual scanned images of this census
                     File name:        Township
                           079A - 083A     Tittabasassee
                            083B - 093B      Saginaw
                            094A - 095A      Northampton
                            095B- 096A      Taymouth
                            096B - 100B      Bridgeport
                            101A - 103B      Buena Vista
                            104A - 110A      Hampton

   View the transcriptions of this census
                          Tittabasassee (not yet proof read)
                          Saginaw (not yet proof read)
                          Northampton (not yet proof read)
                          Taymouth (not yet proof read)
                          Bridgeport (not yet proof read)
                          Buena Vista (not yet proof read)
                           Hampton

Beth Wills could really use some help in the proof reading of this information once it is transcribed ! Please let me know if you are able to help her. Thanks Lesley

Saginaw County Lookups - I could really use some help here - if you own a county resource and would be willing to look-up facts for researchers, please let me know.

Saginaw County Archives - The Saginaw County archives contain files contributed to the project by people just like you. If you have any information to share, please send it to me. Please, Visit often, this project will be "under construction" for a long, long time.

Military Records
Mr. Kim Leese is the Historian for the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War Phil Kearney Camp #67. He is willing to help anyone with any queries about Civil war Veterans from Saginaw.

The Saginaw County Volunteers

Don't you have something that you can contribute to the project? Please let me know if you have something that you would like to add to this page.

Join the Saginaw County Mailing List.

Please put " subscribe" without the quotes in the body of the message

MISAGINA-L-request@rootsweb.com

or the digest version

MISAGINA-D-request@rootsweb.com

SHIP BUILDING ON THE SAGINAW by Catherine C. Baker. 1974. 47-page pamphlet on the history of shipbuilding on the Saginaw River and in Bay City, Michigan; includes names of early shipbuilders. Good condition. $5.00 plus $1.00 shipping

E-mail for details janetm1@earthlink.net

JANET'S USED GENEALOGY BOOKS
http://home.earthlink.net/~janetm1

Professional Researchers (for a fee) in Saginaw County

The USGenWeb Project in commited to providing genealogical data for FREE. But, sometimes, a person feels the need to hire a professional researcher to help them with a specific project. No professional researchers are endorsed by the GenWeb project. These links are here for your convenience only. Any arrangements made with these professional researchers are between you and the researcher.

Duane Miller ( Email: damiller@ms-1.com )-
P. O. Box 239 - Merrill, Michigan 48637

Diane Prout - Maprout@aol.com will do research in Saginaw for only the charge of photocopies. She is really good at what she does!

GENDEX, Gene Stark's Index of Names. This server indexes hundreds of online World Wide Web databases containing genealogical data for hundreds of thousands of individuals, and gives you the ability to locate and view data of interest to you on any of these databases, without having to go and visit each of the databases separately.

Michigan Master County Index - This link will take you to the Michigan GenWeb Page with links to each county in the state.

USGenWeb Page -or USGenWeb Page - Either of these links will take you to the United States GenWeb Page which has links to each individual state.

The USGenWeb Archives - records that have been transcribed from all across the nation including cemetery records, family bibles, obituaries, biographies, etc. These records have been transcribed and placed in the archives by people just like you across the world. You can be a part of this project by submitting any records that you have!

USGenWeb Archive Search Engine - And now, the astounding people at Rootsweb, have developed a search engine for all of the records in these archives. A big thanks to Brian and Karen Leverich at Rootsweb for all of their work in putting together this phase of the archives.

The USGenWeb Archive "Census-On-Line" Project - The goal of this project is to have on-line, in the archive, all the census' for 1780 to 1920 for the entire US. Check out the progress , and if you have any census data please let us know.

The USGenWeb "Tombstone Transcription Project - This project is to have as many cemetery transcriptions from across the country placed in one centralized location. You can view hundreds of cemetery transcriptions here. Do you have any cemetery transcriptions that you would like to add ?

My name is Lesley and I am the webmaster for this page. If you find a link that no longer works or would like to see a link added, please let me know.

HELP!! We need volunteers to do transcriptions of biographies and histories. If you have Saginaw County Resources and are interested in volunteering to do "look ups" or contributing information (it can be a page, a resource not mentioned, or a new link) please contact me, Lesley Moss, and put Saginaw County as the subject.

Web Page design Lesley Moss, � Copyright - 1998-2002
Web Page content before 1998, � Copyright Beth Wills
Non-commercial individuals and libraries are encouraged to copy and use the information found on these pages.
Commercial use requires permission.

Saginaw County Queries, Obituaries and Biographies
Please submit your queries, obituaries or biographies to our American Local History Network Boards listed below.
POST YOUR QUERY HERE	POST YOUR OBITUARY	POST YOUR BIOGRAPHY