Viles Information in Wisconsin and Iowa

My last post discussed new databases for Maine research. As discussed in past posts, numerous Maine Viles families migrated first to Wisconsin settling primarily in Walworth County. From Wisconsin, they scattered West. Many moved to Iowa or Minnesota. Pilot.FamilySearch.org has databases with birth, marriage, and death records for Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. I found the marriage records to be the most complete. I believe that many records are missing from the birth and death records probably because they were not recorded. If the image is not linked to the index on Pilot.FamilySearch.org, the FHL film source will be listed. Researching these families is certainly becoming easier.

Maine Databases

On April 27, 2010, pilot.FamilySearch.org updated three important databases for Maine research.

• Maine Births and Christenings, 1739-1900
• Maine Marriages, 1771-1907, 1739-1900
• Maine Deaths and Burials, 1841-1910, 1739-1900

This is wonderful! There appear to be several databases. The same marriage may appear several times with slightly different information. And a word of caution, some of the marriage dates may in fact may be the marriage intentions and not the actual marriage date.

The research Wiki at FamilySearch.org cautions that databases are not complete for any given area. The LDS source film is given with each entry so that original can be checked out.

In terms of the subject Viles family of this blog, there appear to be several individuals that are members of the family yet not connected in my database. For example, there is a Susan Viles that marries Levi Butler. See entry below:

Groom's Name: Levi Butler

Groom's Birthplace: Of Norridgewock
Bride's Name: Susan Viles
Bride's Birthplace: Of Norridgewock
Marriage Date: 18 Sep 1849
Marriage Place: Norridgewock, Somerset, Maine
Indexing Project (Batch) No.: M52268-1
System Origin: Maine-EASy
Source Film Number: 11577

This couple is living next to Alfred and Thankful Viles in Starks, Somerset, Maine in the 1850 Census. The unanswered question screams, "Is Susan Viles the daughter of Alfred and Thankful (Norton) Viles?"