Kalamazoo County, Michigan Genealogy

United States Michigan  Kalamazoo County

Guide to Kalamazoo County, Michigan ancestry, family history, and genealogy birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

County Courthouse
County Clerk has birth and death records from 1867, marriage records from 1831, divorce and court records from 1800’s. Probate Court has probate records. Register of Deeds has land records.

Parent County
1829--Kalamazoo County was created 29 October 1829 from unorganized territory. It was attached to St. Joseph County prior to organization 1 October 1830. County seat: Kalamazoo

Boundary Changes
For animated maps illustrating Michigan county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation Michigan County Boundary Maps" (1790-1897) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.

Record Loss
For a list of record loss in Michigan counties see: Michigan Counties with Burned Courthouses

Populated Places
Augusta

Climax

Galesburg

Kalamazoo

Parchment

Portage

Richland

Schoolcraft

Vicksburg

Neighboring Counties
Allegan •  Barry  •  Branch  •  Calhoun  •  Cass  •  St. Joseph  •  Van Buren

Cemeteries
Some partial transcriptions are available at Rootsweb: Burials (through 2006) at Riverside Cemetery are available at this site as a PDF.

The Kalamazoo County US GenWeb Page has a list of cemeteries.

Local Histories
Histories of many of the villages in Kalamazoo were described in the 1869 Kalamazoo directory which is available for free from www.archive.org.

Maps



 * Family Maps of (land patent maps) at HistoryGeo.com ($). Free surname search.
 * Maps of Michigan (1790-1897)

Civil War
Civil War service men from Kalamazoo County served in various regiments. Men often joined a regiment or a company (within a regiment) that originated in their county. Listed below are the military units that were formed in or had many men from Kalamazoo County.


 * - 1st Regiment, Michigan Cavalry, Companies I and M
 * - 12th Regiment, Michigan Infantry, Companies F, H, and Unassigned
 * - 17th Regiment, Michigan Infantry, Companies D, I, and K

Newspapers
Kalamazoo Gazette (various incarnations 1837-present). The Kalamazoo Public Library is indexing the newspaper which is searchable online through their website: www.kpl.gov  The continually updated index can be searched by going to Research-&gt; Genealogy -&gt; Local Information Databases -&gt; Search Local Newspapers (select "subject" from the drop down box). Obituaries are available for a small fee.

Kalamazoo Telegraph (various incarnations 1845-1916). The Kalamazoo Public Library is digitizing this paper. It is currently searchable (1868-1899) from their website.

Obituaries
Southwest Michigan Obituary Index from the earliest date to 2000.

Probate
Online Probate Records
 * 1784 – 1980 Michigan Wills and Probate Records 1784-1980 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
 * 1797 – 1973 at FamilySearch — images

Vital Records

 * How to order Michigan Vital Records
 * Michigan Birth Registrations, 1867-1902 -- Free name indexes and images at FamilySearch Record Search. Records include such information as name of child, birthdate and place, if still-born, illegitimate or twin, gender, race and record number.
 * Michigan Marriage Registrations, 1868-1925 -- Free name indexes at FamilySearch Record Search. Records include such information as names of bride and groom, date of license, ages, race, residences, birthplaces, occupations and names of the fathers of the bride and groom.
 * Michigan Death Registrations, 1867-1897-- Free name indexes and images at FamilySearch Record Search.  Records include such information as name of deceased, date and place of death, gender, color, marital status, age in years, months and days, disease or apparent cause of death, birthplace, names and occupations of parents, and the date the record was made.

Family History Centers

 * Introduction to LDS Family History Centers


 * Kalamazoo Michigan Family History Center 1112 N Drake Rd, Kalamazoo, MI 49006 United States

Genealogical Socities

 * List of Michigan Archives, Libraries, Publications, Historical &amp; Genealogical Societies
 * Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society

Web Sites

 * Kalamazoo County, MI History, Records, Facts and Genealogy
 * Michigan Genealogy Network Community on Google+
 * Michigan Genealogy Network Group on Facebook
 * USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. http://www.migenweb.org/kalamazoo/
 * kalamazoogenealogy.org has many local records (digitized and searchable) including vital records, city directories, maps, yearbooks and more.
 * kalamazoogenealogy.blogspot.com (Bushwhacking Genealogy: Kalamazoo and Beyond) describes Kalamazoo genealogy resources and articles on local history.