Introduction from

Family Names in Genealogical Periodicals

This Index to Family Names is the third in a series of publications compiled by Maud Quigley from the collection of genealogical periodicals housed in the Genealogy Room of the Grand Rapids Public Library. The collection includes ninety quarterlies from thirty states.

Some cover as many as thirty years of publication. (Note: Major bound periodicals such as New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Pennsylvania Genealogical Magazine, etc. are not included.)

The family names printed (or) entered in this publication are the major surnames found in Bible records, family cemeteries, genealogies, biographies, wills, pension records, census records, newspaper articles, and other writings. Some listings contain many persons with the same surname, while others contain fewer individuals. There are more than seven thousand entries.

We, the members of Western Michigan Genealogy Society, wish to express our appreciation to Maud Quigley for compiling and donating her works to the Society. The information published herein and in the two previously published indexes: Index to Michigan Research in Genealogical Periodicals and Index to Hard-to-Find Information in Genealogical Periodicals, form a valuable series for genealogists, and we at Western Michigan Genealogical Society are proud to be able to make them available.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In 1970 with a small notebook in hand, Maud Quigley began to index some of the periodicals in the genealogy room at the Grand Rapids Public Library. Her plan was to index a limited number of periodicals and place the notebook on the shelf for everyone to use. The project grew and grew. Almost every afternoon over the past ten years Maud could be found in the genealogy room working. She has indexed all the copies available (in GRPL) of ninety different periodicals. Her small notebook grew to three large notebooks that developed into three specific indexes.

1. Index to Michigan Research in Genealogical Periodicals.
2. Index to Hard-to-Find Information in Genealogical Periodicals,
3. This Index to Family Names in Genealogical Periodicals

We felt it appropriate to use this final publication to tell you about Maud.

Maud was born 28 October 1900 in Freeport, Barry County, Michigan, to William DeWitt Quigley and Agnes Forbey. Although her favorite subjects in school were history and geography, she studied at Columbia in New York City in the field of pattern making and dress design. She also studied at the University of Michigan and Western Michigan University, graduating as a teacher from the latter in 1942. For more than forty years Maud taught first grade in Grand Rapids; her schools included Straight, Henry, Diamond, and what is now VandenBerg. Meeting her former students on the street now and having a talk is a rewarding and enjoyable time for her.

When her great-great grandfather, Isaac Quigley, a Revolutionary War soldier had an official war department monument dedicated to him in Jackson County in 1968, Maud became "hooked" on genealogy. Ruth Thorndill, a lovely lady in the Western Michigan Genealogical Society at that time got her started with charts, and shortly after this Maud joined the society. Via materials located in GRPL she has traced her family back to New Amsterdam in 1642.

Maud is convinced that everyone has important people in his background and likes to think of her indexes as "grass roots" material. She feels that everyone should have a chance to do his family tree and that because of the wide distribution of materials in these indexes, they will prove very helpful. At the age of eighty you will still find Maud almost any afternoon in the genealogy room busily volunteering her time with current periodicals. With her friendly smile and cheerful attitude she will give assistance to anyone needing help, and then return to her work, "keeping on with all (the periodicals) that come in." Maud is a vibrant, happy, faithful worker; we are proud to have her as a member of our society, and we sincerely thank her for this labor of love.

All her friends from

Western Michigan Genealogical Society