Still here and still digging (kind of)

I spent very little time on genealogy research over the summer. I kinda sorta looked at a few things, but nothing specifically related to my family. Just some general history stuff. I needed a break from my family stuff and the brick walls I keep running into.

I've really gotten into maps lately. The library I work for recently subscribed to the Historic Map Works database and I just love it. One of the cool features is the historical overlay, where you can take an old map and lay it over a present-day Google map of your town. I was able to overlay Canton and see what used to be where my house is (a farm - no big surprise there). I've also mapped Kochville Towship where I grew up. That was and still is farmland (and probably always will be farms).

This week marks ten years since I moved to Canton from Saginaw. Ten years! As my adopted hometown, it's nice to learn a little bit more about the history here. Another fun way I've done that is by looking through old issues of the Canton Observer. They're all digitized on the Canton Public Library website all the way back to the first issue from 1974. Back then, the hot news story was the brand new Meijer store that had just opened here!

Old newspapers are also fun for the advertisements. I like seeing how much groceries cost at different points in time, and I like punching in addresses of businesses into Google Maps to see what's there now and see if any of those places are still around (usually they're not).




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