GSMC Archives

The GSMC Archives is located on the second floor of the Monroe County Museum, 126 S. Monroe Street, Monroe, MI. We are open every Wednesday from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm (closed from noon until 1:00 for lunch). If you would like to arrange for other times to use our archives, please contact us.

Our archives is now in a bigger room with more bookcases and room for researchers! We have all of our club's publications and newsletters. We also have many newsletters for other genealogical societies across Michigan and some from Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Illinois. We have 13 book cases of reference material for Monroe County, Michigan, and adjoining states, plus Kentucky and Tennessee. We have transcriptions of all county cemeteries and transcriptions of several local church records. We also have copies of death certificates for some of our twps and the births and marriages that appeared in the Monroe Evening News social pages from Jan 1926 through Dec 1950. Stop by to visit our archives! A list of our holdings can be found on our website under GSMC Library on left menu. Thanks to the folks at the Monroe County Museum for allowing us to have this room!!!

The Betty Gay Collection is a great resource for Monroe County genealogists. Betty Gay was a dedicated researcher who traced the ancestry of many Monroe County families and donated copies of her research to our society. There are over 5000 names in the index to this collection, which contains obituaries, death records, family group sheets, and pedigree charts. Her collection is housed in over 35 binders on our shelves. Check out the index on our website and stop in the archives to see what Betty compiled on your family.

While visiting our archives be sure to stop by the museum's archives to check out the massive obituary index, which covers deaths in the entire county from 1830's to current times. The museum also has a great photo archives and name/subject files. Many church histories which include biographies of members are located in the museum's archives, as well as 2 file cabinets housing 2500 folders of information about Monroe County Civil War soldiers. Plan to spend the day researching your family while here. We are adding to our collection and have an all county cemetery index on our website containing information on over 95,100 burials in our county.