The Monroe County Local History Room has just added two new indexes and several updates to its award-winning genealogy and local history website, www.MonroeCountyHistory.org.
One new index is the Monroe County Mortality Index. It is a database of names and accompanying information listed on mortality schedules from the 1860, 1870, and 1880 U.S. Federal Censuses for Monroe County. A person was listed on a mortality schedule if he or she died within the previous year of when the census was taken (anytime between June 1 of the year prior to the census through May 31 of the census year).
Mortality schedule information may be useful, as death records were not required by the State of Wisconsin until 1907. Besides name, residence, age, and date of death, additional information may include place of birth, father and mother’s nativity, profession, cause of death, and number of days ill.
The other new index to the website is the Monroe County Passport Application Index. This is an index of individuals who resided in Monroe County and applied for a U.S. Passport to travel abroad prior to 1925. Besides names, birthdates, residency and application date information, passport applications often contain additional information, including birthplace, immigration year when applicable, father’s name and birth information, places intending to travel to, physical description, and a photograph.
These records may be of particular interest for genealogists researching an immigrant ancestor who later returned to visit his or her home country.
Besides the new indexes, updates have been made to the Monroe County Biographical Index to incorporate the personal war sketches of Civil War veterans who were part of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Posts in Sparta and Tomah.
Updates also have been made to the Monroe County Cemetery Index and Monroe County Church Records Index.
Additionally, the Monroe County Newspaper Index has grown by about 15,000 entries for the Monroe County Democrat, Tomah Journal, Kendall Keystone, and Star-Herald News (Norwalk and Wilton area). There are now more than 300,000 newspaper articles abstracted from Monroe County newspapers from the 1850s to 1960s.
There are now a half-million Monroe County names and keywords searchable through MonroeCountyHistory.org using 21 different search indexes, from newspaper articles to military records. More than 13,000 historic photographs are also available to view.
Learn more about the Monroe County Local History Room research website by visiting www.MonroeCountyHistory.org or by stopping in the Local History Room at 200 W. Main St., Sparta, Wis. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
