Follow local government, schools and community collections toward your next piece of evidence.
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Separate access routes: Stop 2: confirm the Auburn Hills archive appointment location directly. Stop 6: Archives of Michigan, Lansing. Stop 5: Farmington archives temporarily unavailable; contact before planning research.
County outlines: Census 2024 cartographic boundaries . Selected roads: Census 2024 primary and secondary roads . Public repository addresses were checked against the links above and placed using the Census address geocoder. Locations are approximate, not verified entrances. Historical boundaries, township lines, traffic rules and construction are not shown. Prepared October 31, 2026.
Consult the available Polk or Bresser directory year; record the exact entry and address.
For an eligible period, ask about voter registration, including the separate women-voters records for 1912–1919.
Use the Daily Tribune archive or municipal subject files to investigate local context and follow references.
Evidence check: Suggested research sequence, not proof that every person appears in all three sources. Registration is not proof of voting; directory years have gaps.
Royal Oak collection and digital newspaper access · Royal Oak finding aid
Follow the community and record type that fit your question. County-wide guides include local collections that cover only particular townships, schools or organizations.
Before you visit: A finding aid describes records; it does not mean every page is online. Check the access notes for appointments, restricted material and missing years.
School inspectors' minutes, 1852–1871 and 1872–1914, document teacher examinations, district boundaries, occasional maps and school-money allocations. Electors' registers cover 1872–1924, including female electors in 1919–1924. Road survey minutes cover 1835–1916.
These are archival series, not a promise of online name searching or complete annual coverage.
Pontiac Township tax records and school/student photographs complement Auburn Heights Sentinel issues from 1958 and Auburn Argus issues from 1985–1991. The collection covers Pontiac Township, Auburn, Amy, Auburn Heights and Auburn Hills.
Tax-record dates are not stated. An apparent reversed newspaper-date range on the source page is deliberately omitted pending confirmation.
The research library holds manuscripts, scrapbooks, city directories, newspapers, cemetery records, maps and atlases. Oakland County Genealogical Society materials are also housed here.
Confirm current hours, appointment arrangements and charges directly; institutional and partner pages differ. No comprehensive date range is advertised for these collection categories.
The finding aid identifies voter registration records, 1894–1928 (bulk 1927–1928), and a separate women-voters series, 1912–1919. It also lists tax assessment rolls, city planning files and municipal documents. Royal Oak Polk directories and South Oakland County Bresser cross-index directories offer additional ways to connect a person with a street or neighborhood.
Registration records reflect the rules and administrative practices of their time, not a complete list of residents or proof that someone voted. The finding aid includes scattered directory years and a narrower older newspaper date range than the current web page. For newspapers, use the current Daily Tribune archive link and inspect the actual issue.
The Heritage Collection lists Heeney-Sundquist Funeral Home Records, obituary indexes, the Cook Collection, and engagement, anniversary and wedding material for 1940–1959. Its newspaper inventory identifies Farmington Observer and predecessor titles on microfilm, 1910–2011, with scattered earlier issues from 1888–1910. These provide alternatives to a single statewide name search.
No date range is supplied for the funeral-home records. Do not transfer the wedding collection's dates to them. An index is only a lead; request the underlying entry and citation. The closure notice takes priority over general descriptions of room services and holdings.
The Oakland County guide lists Southfield Township school-inspector minutes, 1857–1909, and assessment rolls for 1933 in RG 69-74. Additional township tax routes include Lyon assessment rolls, 1848–1879 (RG 77-107), Orion, 1904–1998 (RG 2021-84), and West Bloomfield, 1858–1960 (RG 71-100). These are separate series tied to specific jurisdictions.
The guide marks certain collections housed at Oakland University with an asterisk; the series named here are unstarred. Confirm custody when requesting. School-inspector minutes are administrative records, not necessarily pupil lists. Tax spans do not guarantee every parcel or year, and the single Southfield year should not be presented as a continuous series.
The township finding aid identifies marriage consents, 1829–1834; an assessment roll, 1839; road petitions and district lists of persons, 1833; school-district descriptions, 1833; and Avon–Troy fractional-district papers, 1834–1835. These can connect a household to neighbors or a small jurisdiction. A separate Farmers Club collection, 1897–1917, includes programs and secretary books.
The online files are finding aids, not scans of every record. Date spans describe surviving material, not continuous coverage. Club records do not represent every farmer in Troy.
The library provides an 1857 Waterford landowner list, a transcription of the 1850 agricultural census, 1872 business notices, a cemetery index covering approximately 1820–1990, and indexes to nineteenth-century Pontiac newspaper death, marriage and probate notices. Use these to move from a name to a farm, business or dated newspaper lead.
Transcriptions and indexes can omit or misread entries. A probate notice index is not the probate case file; use its date and newspaper reference to locate the notice and then seek the court record.
Greater Rochester History Online includes photographs, postcards, oral histories and yearbooks. The library lists digitized Rochester High School, Rochester Adams High School and Stoney Creek High School yearbooks. Its physical local-history publications cover topics including local churches and cemeteries, the Ferry-Morse Seed Farm and Van Hoosen Farm.
Check the actual school and year holdings; the overview does not establish a complete run. An oral history offers a remembered account and should be compared with contemporary records.
The city’s January 2024 announcement documents free digital access to Birmingham school yearbooks for 1919–1929. The museum also holds photographs, archival records and audiovisual material relevant to local property and family-history questions.
The archives are not open for direct public browsing. The collection is not comprehensive. Confirm current fees and reproduction permission with staff; the linked policy is dated 2024. The yearbook announcement verifies 1919–1929, not later additions or every surviving school volume.
Give the repository the locality, year, collection and specific question. Ask about the relevant volume or folder, gaps, access restrictions and copying costs. Save the citation and record what you searched, including searches with no result.
Suggest a correction, an overlooked collection or an updated access detail. An official link or source helps us check it before making a change. Please leave out private family documents and sensitive personal information.
Suggest a correction or collectionWatch the Short. Open the protocol. Follow the evidence.