Director of the Fort de Buade Museum Judi Engle shows an antique spinning wheel from Chief Satago's home. The use of the wheel, she said Friday, November 14, shows how other cultures were integrated into the Native American lifestyle. A free program that begins this month invites residents to trace their family lineage with the eventual goal of revealing the history of St. Ignace. Through that history, Judi Engle hopes to document the area's national significance, linking people and events to artifacts that are part of the collection at the Fort de Buade Museum.

Filling a gap in the area's history in the mid- to late-1800s by documenting the lineage of residents to early settlers, and connecting them to the history of the fur trade and the relics at the State Street museum, she said, will help secure state and federal grants. The Straits of Mackinac region was the center of the fur trade, and that has national significance, she said.

Ms. Engle, a genealogist, will lead the 11-month program, which seeks to discover "what happened here in St. Ignace through our family histories."

Tintypes of Chief Satago relatives from his family album are on display at Fort de Buade Museum. The local chief passed away in the early 1900s and researching the family will provide valuable genealogical information, said Museum Director Judi Engle. She is the president of the Michilimackinac Historical Society and director of the cityowned museum.

The historical society has a contract with the city to operate the museum.

The project is called the Straits Area Genealogical Acquisition, and Ms. Engle will assist anyone who wants to research their family history. Work tables have been set up at the museum and some research books sit on shelves, awaiting those who seek to discover their ancestors.

"I'm doing it to help the history of our town, the museum, and people," she said. "I want little kids to grow up here and have a book in the library that they can pull out and say, 'Hey, that's my family' and be proud of who they are and know where they came from.

"It's important," she added, "and if we don't do it now, we'll lose it forever."

Ms. Engle will be at the museum from Tuesday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m. Weekly workshops will be Wednesdays from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Round table discussions with all participants will be held the second Thursday of each month from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. and will offer those attending a chance to exchange notes and stories and possibly provide others with needed information to further their research.

She seeks to trace area families to those here when Father Jacques Marquette established a mission at St. Ignace in 1671.

"When we study back to them, we're going to find the whole history back to the 1600s. Once I prove that on paper, and make a record of it, this museum and those artifacts in it become nationally historic."

The work will be done by comparing family stories with historical records, sorting fact from fiction. The records can be found in libraries, Mackinac State Historic Parks, and from birth, marriage, and death records kept by the counties and local parishes. Canadian and French records will also be consulted.

"It's putting all these little things together to find your history," she said.

Eventually, those histories will be put together to tell the story of the early residents of the area, who they were, and how they were interconnected. The information will be put on display at the museum and artifacts will be used to help tell the history. Changes in artifacts, including tools and beadwork, will show the impact of different cultures as they arrived in the area. A person, she said, will be able to walk through the history of the community in the museum.

For the last eight years, Ms. Engle has been doing genealogy research on local families, including her own. For many area families, research will include using the 30-volume reference books, "Our French-Canadian Ancestors," by Thomas J. Laforest. Ms. Engle has traced her family using his books as a reference.

Most of the early families in the region were either Indian or French Canadian, she said, with fur traders arriving from Quebec and Montreal.

"Almost everybody you talk to says they can trace their family back several generations until they get to Canada, and they quit tracing them; they can't find them. So there is this link between Canada and here. All you have to do is find them and then you'll find the rest of your history."

Those who register for the program are required to sign a release that requires they will submit all of the information they discover with the local historical society and agree to allow the information to be published. Five to 10 families are expected to participate in the project, Ms. Engle said.

Publishing the information will provide revenue for the historical society.

When this project concludes, said Ms. Engle, the group will assess its success and determine if there is enough interest to establish a genealogy society and continue on with research of other area families to add to the museum and possibly a second book.

"Eventually this will be a big circle of education and people in St. Ignace can get a sense of who they are, again," she said. "It's going to take some time. We're going to have to retrieve it first to preserve it."

For more information about the program, call the Fort de Buade Museum at 643-6627.