Oconto County WIGenWeb Project
 posted by RITA

GLORIA'S OCONTO COUNTY
RESEARCH SUGGESTIONS
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Gloria returned from an extensive research trip to Oconto County recently. Here you will find some valuable suggestions to consider before making your own genealogical and family history research trip to the county resources. Email Gloria Olson
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1. The Farnsworth Oconto County Library
If planning to look at microfilm at the library, you need to
schedule time.  The max unless no one else around is one hour.  Their
busy time for genealogy research is summer.  If your main purpose is
genealogy research, you might want to schedule trip at another time.  I
walked in not knowing you had to schedule time, they told the man there
was on the viewer. He had 15 minutes because someone else wanted to use
it.  He then scheduled the next hour.  To slowly view a reel takes about
2 hours.  They only have one viewer, which is better than my 4 closest
local libraries, who have none.

2.  Register of Deeds.  BE SURE YOU HAVE A PENCIL.
The rule makes a lot of sense, since they do not want you near the indexes
with a pen, accidental marks with a pen cannot be erased.

Also with working the indexes, writing down all volume and record
numbers for birth, marriage and deaths you are looking for before going
to microfiche speeds up the process.  Better yet, take your list home
sort by type, Volume and record number, and go back the next day.  You
can go through the microfiche a lot faster working one volume at a time
with record numbers in order .

3.  Wills and court cases.  Be prepared to stand.  No arrangements have
been made for a person to sit down and view film.  A slower process as the clerks have
to pull the microfish for you and you may have to return in order to
view a certain item.  It may be better to go in one day, find what you
want, talk to the clerk, and give them time to pull the film.  The film
can be very difficult to read.  Cost $1.00 per sheet for copied documents.

Also,  They are more hesitant to give out records.  It took three trips to get
all but one of the items I originally went in to view. For Wills which researchers have been told are not be available, write the head of probate and make a request from the judge. In my case, first they said it was sealed, I had proof with me I was direct descendent and when I was there they said it could not be found.

Also, I think obtaining a list of what is available in Register of Deeds
would be helpful.  One group was researching old school records, which I
did not know were available.  Also they have incorporation papers (towns and villages), plus
the obvious land records.

The trip was a real learning experience.  It is hard to concentrate on
what you went for.  It is easy to get side tracked on something you
think might fit.  We went in with priority lists.  We tried not to get
side tracked until we completed those, it worked most of the time.
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