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North Adams Community Memorial Library

Local History & Genealogical Research

Links to items of local historical significance and research links.

Local History

Maxine Kline Randall

North Adams is the hometown of Maxine Kline who played with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League 1951-1954. The League Players Association has her baseball card and statistics.

Maxine Kline

James E. Williams

From The Hillsdale Daily News, Tuesday, December 2, 1969. Page 2, column 1

Japanese People Honor Williams

NORTH ADAMS – James E. Williams, son of Mr. and Mrs. E. J. Williams of 307 N. Main St. [sic], North Adams, has been awarded the Good Deed Commendation Medal by the Zenkokai Association of the Japanese government for his outstanding assistance to the Japanese people.

Mr. Williams, 47, is a United States citizen and a parasitologist at the department of medical zoology, 406th Medical Laboratory of the U.S. Army medical command in Japan. He has been in Japan since Jan. 22, 1952. He has devoted the better part of his life to research, control and eradication of two serious diseases which have plagued Japan for centuries, tosomiasis and paragonimiasis. [sic]

[There is much more to this article, including a photograph. At the time of the above award, he had been in living in Japan, working on this problem, for 17 years. The park on East Main Street here in North Adams, is named for him.]

More info can be found here:

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/115/4/382.extract

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=0ahUKEwjgyP_doYvPAhUIeCYKHQggAHEQFghMMAk&url=http%3A%2F%2Fasc.army.mil%2Fdocs%2Fpubs%2Falt%2Farchives%2F1964%2FFeb_1964.PDF&usg=AFQjCNEItbXk54ynnvUJrFmgh4R0HzAd-g
pg 34

In Memorium - Hillsdale County Heroes

This link will take you to scanned images of a scrapbook that is in our library. It is a collection of news clippings from World War II. Local men who sacrificed their lives and one who made it back. This is an extremely large file. It will take time to download and view. (29 pages) To access the index, click here.

Genealogical Research Links

The Ancestry link will only work if you are inside the library.
including My Heritage (you are able to use these and all following links at home)
including Michigan Death Records 1897-1920, 1921-1947, and 1948-1952; Michigan Civil War databases; Governors of Michigan; Oral Histories and WPA Property Inventories for Hillsdale County
Chronicling America (Library of Congress)
Newspapers from across America
county histories from Michigan counties and plat atlases, including Hillsdale County 1872. Searchable.
plat map of Adams Township in 1872
plat map of Adams Township in 1894
Ancestor Blog
This link takes you a list of some Michigan newspapers at Chronicling America
many databases of original images of records, including many pertaining to Michigan.
in the late 1800s the Michigan Historical Society collected information from every county and published an annual volume
Browse images of the 1940 census, just released 2 April 2012
"...the entire 1940 census will be indexed by a community of volunteers and made available for free. The free index of the 1940 US census records and corresponding images will be available to the public for perpetuity."
The indexing is complete for the 1940 census!

Mitchell Research Center (in Hillsdale)