A few books and web sites to make your Midwestern search easier . . .
Books
Baer, M. Teresa and Geneil Breeze, eds. Finding Indiana Ancestors: A Guide to Historical Research. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press, 2007.
DuMelle, Grace. Finding Your Chicago Ancestors: A Beginner’s Guide to Family History in the City and Cook County. Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 2005.
Szucs, Loretto Dennis. Chicago and Cook County: A Guide to Research. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1996.
DeBoer, Shirley M. NGS Research in the States Series: Michigan. Arlington VA: National Genealogical Society, 2008.
And, an example for the ambitious — what a historian learned from township records of Kalamazoo County: Gray, Susan E. The Yankee West: Community Life on the Michigan Frontier. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Web Sites
National Archives, Great Lakes Region
Gary, Indiana, Resources
City directories available at various repositories:
1908, 1908-9, 1909, 1913, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1918-9, 1920, 1922, 1923, 1925-6, 1927, 1929, 1930, 1935, 1937, 1939, 1941, 1945, 1948, 1952, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964-5, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974-5
