About Us

What is Seeking Michigan

Seeking Michigan is the online platform for the Michigan Historical Center. It includes Archives of Michigan research guides and indexes, a blog, and educator resources – all from the Michigan Historical Center and Archives of Michigan staff.

What is available online?

You can search digital collections from any page on Seeking Michigan by using the search box in the top right corner. If you want to search by name or other criteria, click the “ADVANCED SEARCH” button and additional search options will drop down.

There are more than million records on Seeking Michigan and new material is added frequently. The most used collection is Michigan Death Records, 1897 – 1920.

In addition to death records, there are a number of collections ranging from pre-statehood to the late 1960s, and these include letters, diaries, photographs, postcards, and video. Any of the the links below take you to a landing page for a collection that explains what is in the collection and how to search within the collection. If you just want to go straight to the records, click the “Browse” button.

Seeking Michigan recently underwent significant changes. If you are having trouble navigating the new layout, please watch a tutorial on how to use the new search functions.

What is available on site?

Abrams Foundation Historical Collection

The Abrams Collection emphasizes states east of the Mississippi River, including the Great Lakes region, New England, Mid-Atlantic and Southern states, and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Some examples include:

• County and local histories, cemetery transcriptions, vital record indexes, and much more from across the U.S.
• Thousands of collective and individual family genealogies.
• Birth, death, and marriage records for a number of states across the U.S., as well as and Ontario.
• A large collection of historical directories for major U.S. cities.
• Plat maps and Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps for many eastern U.S. states.
• Immigration records consisting of thousands of National Archives microfilms and a large collection of printed resources.

Primary Sources

The Archives of Michigan preserves and provides access to state and local government records, as well as private manuscripts. These primary sources include:

• Naturalization records for most Michigan counties.
• State government commission meeting minutes.
• Committee records from the Michigan State Senate and House of Representatives.
• Military records from the American Civil War to World War I.
• Records from the original land surveys that laid out Michigan’s township and range system.
• Approximately fifty thousand cartographic images and over a million photographs.