Mackinac County, Michigan Genealogy: Records, Archives & Research Guide

Mackinac County, Michigan: the basics

Mackinac County occupies the eastern tip of the Upper Peninsula, wrapping both sides of the Straits of Mackinac and touching two Great Lakes — Huron and Michigan. Territorial governor Lewis Cass proclaimed it as Michilimackinac County on October 26, 1818, one of the very first counties organized in the Michigan Territory. At the time it swallowed most of what’s now the Upper Peninsula plus a chunk of the northern Lower Peninsula; every county carved out up here since then was cut from that original block. The county was reorganized and renamed Mackinac County in 1849.

St. Ignace has been the county seat since 1882. Before that, county government sat on Mackinac Island itself — fitting, since the island had been the region’s commercial and administrative center since the fur-trade era. St. Ignace has its own claim on Michigan’s early history: it grew up around a Jesuit mission village founded in 1671, making it one of the oldest continuously settled places in the state.

If your family research runs through French-Canadian voyageurs, British-era fur traders, Great Lakes fishing families, or Straits-area Anishinaabe (Native American) communities, Mackinac County sits at the center of that story, not the edge of it. This page collects Mackinac County genealogy and family history resources by record type, township, and time period — most of the county is still rural, so knowing which township an ancestor farmed or fished in — Moran, near Brevort Lake; Garfield, around Curtis; or Bois Blanc Island — often matters more than knowing the county name alone.

What records exist, and from what year

That 1785 land record date is unusually early for Michigan — a legacy of the Straits’ long French and British administrative history, well before Michigan Territory existed.

Where to search Mackinac County records

1. Mackinac County Clerk’s Office, 100 South Marley Street, St. Ignace. Certified copies of birth, marriage, and death records run $20 for the first copy and $10 for each additional copy of the same record.
2. Mackinac County Register of Deeds — land records from 1785 forward, plus plats, mortgages, and probate-related property orders.
3. Archives of Michigan / Michiganology — pre-1915 death certificates, naturalization records, and Michigan State Census returns, free to search online at michiganology.org.
4. FamilySearch — the Mackinac County genealogy wiki page, with a known-record-dates table and links to digitized collections.
5. St. Ignace Public Library — a genealogy and family history collection covering the surrounding area, including local surname files.
6. Luce-Mackinac Genealogical Society — a regional society covering both counties; a good place to send a specific surname query if you’ve hit a wall on your own.
7. Michilimackinac Historical Society, operating the Mackinac Straits History Museum in St. Ignace — regional archives, curated exhibits, and a collection of Straits-area artifacts and family history material.

Fort Michilimackinac, Ste. Anne, and records older than the county

This is the part of Mackinac County research that surprises people: the paper trail here starts almost two centuries before county government did. The Catholic mission of St. Ignace de Michilimackinac, later known as Ste. Anne, kept baptism, marriage, and burial registers beginning in 1695 — baptisms from 1695 to 1821, marriages from 1725, burials from the 1740s onward. Transcriptions of these registers exist through the Library of Congress and the Wisconsin Historical Society, and the original volumes are held by Ste. Anne Church on Mackinac Island today.

Military records go back almost as far. The French built Fort Michilimackinac around 1715; the British constructed Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island in 1780–81 during the Revolutionary War and held the Straits through several changes of flag before the post closed in 1895. An 1883 county history and Army captain Dwight Kelton’s own Annals of Fort Mackinac compiled the fullest surviving roster of officers who served at both posts, 1742 to 1882. Our Officers at Michilimackinac and Fort Mackinac, 1742–1882 page doesn’t reprint that roster — instead it walks through where the underlying service records live today, from NARA post returns for the American years to Library and Archives Canada and France’s Archives nationales d’outre-mer for the British and French periods. For the county’s broader 19th-century narrative, see History of Cheboygan and Mackinac Counties, 1873.

The Straits have been Anishinaabe territory for far longer still — Ojibwe (Chippewa) and Odawa (Ottawa) communities lived and traded around St. Ignace for thousands of years before French contact, alongside a Huron refugee settlement that lasted roughly three decades in the late 1600s. Today’s Straits-area Native community is represented in part by the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, a Michigan state-historic tribe headquartered in St. Ignace, and by the federally recognized Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, in which many local families hold enrollment. County vital records won’t reliably cover tribal enrollment or pre-1867 events for these families — tribal and mission records are the better starting point.

More Mackinac County resources on this site

• Officers at Michilimackinac and Fort Mackinac, 1742–1882
• History of Cheboygan and Mackinac Counties, 1873
• Mackinac County Cemetery Transcriptions
• 1900 Census Surnames — Engadine
• 1910 Census Surnames — Engadine
• 1920 Surname Index — Engadine
• 1894 State Census of Veterans, Mackinac County

FAQ

When was Mackinac County, Michigan organized? Territorial governor Lewis Cass proclaimed Michilimackinac County on October 26, 1818 — one of the first counties in the Michigan Territory, originally covering nearly the whole Upper Peninsula. It was reorganized and shortened to Mackinac County in 1849.

What is the county seat of Mackinac County? St. Ignace, since 1882. Before that, the county seat was the community on Mackinac Island itself, reflecting the island’s earlier importance as a fur-trade hub.

How far back do Mackinac County vital records go? The county clerk holds marriage records from 1867, birth and death records from 1873, and divorce records from 1897. Land records at the Register of Deeds run all the way back to 1785, decades before the county existed in its current form.

Are there genealogy records for Mackinac County older than the county itself? Yes. The Catholic mission of Ste. Anne at Michilimackinac kept baptism, marriage, and burial registers starting in 1695 — nearly a century and a quarter before Michigan became a state. Transcriptions and translations are held by institutions including the Library of Congress and the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Where can I find records for Anishinaabe families connected to the Straits of Mackinac? Start with the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, a Michigan state-historic tribe based in St. Ignace, and the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, the federally recognized tribe many Straits-area families are enrolled in. County vital records won’t reliably cover tribal enrollment or pre-1867 events.