Chassell Township Cemetery

Houghton County, Michigan

1906 – Present

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  Historical societies and Genealogy groups across the Nation are attempting to document the names in every cemetery in every county in every state. We contribute this database toward that effort and ask that this information not be copied to other databases without permission.
Copyright this data: Connie Julien

Click here to see an intro to the research involved with the Chassell Cemetery.

This data base took almost a year to compile, if you would care to make a donation to help cover those expenses and to keep this info on line, click here:

The Chassell Cemetery is located in Chassell, off Hancock Street: from Willson Mem Drive (US 41) turn West on 2nd Street then turn on Hancock Street to the Cemetery.

Click here to see the Cemetery Plot Map of the Old Section, and of the New Section
The old section is just as you enter the cemetery from the East, it includes from the entrance gate to the top of the turn around circle. The original "org" section is the ...
The new section, called the New Addition (NA) is at the West end, it starts from the top of the circle near the big tree to the far West tree line of the grounds.

Click here to see a Surname alphabetical listing of the Chassell Cemetery: 
A & B;  C, D, E, F;  G, H, I;  J & K;  L;  M;  N, O, P;  Q, R, S;  T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z & unknown.

Please Read this before looking for your family names in the lists above: In addition to those buried in the Chassell Cemetery, this list also contains some Chassell residents (who died previous to 1952 found in Dr. Percy H. Willson's death certificate books)  that lived in Chassell, but were buried elsewhere as indicated in the "buried where" column: CH=Chassell, FH=Forest Hill (in Portage Township), HAN=Hancock, HO=Houghton, LS=Lake Side (outside of Hancock), LV=Lake View (W of Calumet).  
We did our best to read the originals, but the lettering was often difficult to decipher. Other abbreviations used in the data base: S= There was a Stone found in the cemetery for this person; NA= Their plot is located in the New Addition of the cemetery; old= Their plot is located in the old section of the cemetery; org= Their plot is located in the orginal section of the cemetery, the blocks in the original section were numbered by the alphabet A thru W;

Other Links:

Other Links of interest to genealogists researching their local families:

The Genealogical Society of Finland  http://www.genealogia.fi/index.php

Finland Institue of Migration:  http://www.migrationinstitute.fi/index_e.php
Go to emigrant register, then pick either passport or passenger information. Type in your last name to search all immigrants with the name or your specific name if you know the spelling.
It also has a search for reference records, taken from the church calendars and papers.

French-Canadian Genealogical Research in Houghton County, Michigan

Obituaries on line from the Daily Mining Gazette Newspaper

Jacobsville Cemetery, headstone names listing: MTU archives

Houghton-Keweenaw County Genealogical Society

Houghton County: Part of MIGenWeb Michigan Genealogy, USGenWeb Project

The Finnish People of Houghton County and the U.P

Local Finnish Weekly TV Program available on line

Family Tree Maker offers a GenForum for posting questions about Houghton County Genealogy questions

Historical Archives in the Michigan Tech University Library
    Local Newspapers on microfilm from MTU archives     http://www.lib.mtu.edu/mtuarchives/subject.aspx
     Local Genealogy Researchers for hire

Genealogy from the Library of Michigan & State Archives of Michigan

State of Michigan Archives

Family History Library (hosted by the Mormon Church)

Article: One-third of Copper Country claims Finnish ancestry, federal statistics show

Michigan Civil War Soldiers and History

French Canadian/Acadian Genealogists of Wisconsin

Baraga County Obituaries: 2003 Obits,  2004 Obits,  2005 Obits

List of all Cemeteries in Houghton and Baraga Counties

Database on all miners who worked for Calumet-Hecla Mines available to purchase on CD from the Keweenaw Heritage Center in Calumet,
              compiled by Jean and Tom Ellis.

Chassell Township Cemetery

Houghton County, Michigan

1906 – Present...

  Historical Societies and Genealogy groups across the Nation are attempting to document the names in every cemetery in every county in every state. The Michigan Tech Archive, Directed by Erik Nordberg, is coordinating this effort in the Western UP Counties. Jim Dompier and the Baraga County Museum, coordinate the Baraga County volunteers who are documenting their cemeteries. Connie Julien coordinated with Forest Hills Cemetery in Houghton, which is the biggest cemetery in the county, to temporally obtain their complete list of burial cards (about 25,000) to be copied by the MTU Archives and made available to family historians at the MTU library. The Chassell cemetery cataloging was also coordinated by Connie Julien with the help of local volunteers: Vicki Hill Usitalo, Hal Seppala, Mary Frantti Jurgensen, Erma Makela Burkman, David Bezotte, and Jason Julien who made the map. The township helped purchase software to compile this data and to make a computerized plot map of the cemetery.  

   The Chassell project was started in the Fall of 2001 in conjunction with the National “Make a Difference Day” where people, nation wide, are encouraged to do something for their communities. One of Connie Julien’s hobbies is researching the family tree. A great deal of this research is done with Internet searches of documents that are now available on web sites. This information is available “on-line” mostly through the help of volunteers who have contributed many hours of work to compile records from their communities. So Connie decided to help other family genealogists by assisting in these efforts.

  At the beginning of the project, Connie estimated it would take about a week of work to catalog the Cemetery in Chassell. A problem encountered, was that the church where the original cemetery records were held, burned down and those records were lost decades ago and record keeping was not always as good as can be now in the days of computers.  So what started out to be an estimated weeks worth of volunteer work, ended up taking hundreds of hours over the winter compiling the information from many different sources. The first sources of information included hand written notes and “black books of burial and deeds” from the previous Chassell sextant, the late Wilmer Sauvola, and a number of “walk-throughs” of the cemetery recording all the grave stones and their inscriptions and locations. Ted Huhta, previous gravedigger, also provided some unknown gravesite locations and information by recollection. When it became apparent that the information compiled from these sources did not include all burials, other sources of information were needed.  So we found and included the information in the certificates of death from Dr. Percy Willson, Chassell Physician. We recorded all death certificates signed by his office from 1906 until 1952.  We then recorded burials found in Chassell’s local Lutheran and Catholic Church records, for those listed as buried in Chassell.

  The current data base, searchable alphabetically by last name, includes the following columns of information: Name of deceased, Date of birth, Place of birth, Spouse’s name, Father’s name, Father’s birthplace, Mother’s maiden name, Mother’s birthplace, Date of Death, Age at death, Where died, Where buried, Military rank and other comments, Plot location, and if requested, the cause of death when known.  It is important to note again that this database is a compilation from many sources. One must remember, when doing family research, it is important to double check primary sources. Chassell Township keeps the original documentation and records for this database.

   Even though our database has of wealth of information, not all this information was available for all burials. But you too can be a volunteer in this project by providing some of the missing information: we would like full dates (Month, Day, Year) on all dates, full names, including middle names of all persons, maiden names on all the women, correct spelling on everyone’s names, indication of who is man and wife, and any other info you could share for future generations in search of their roots! contact webmaster if you can help supply any of this information.

  We currently have about 1,250 names and another 450 plots (sold or vacant) all entered. We are not completely finished with the Chassell Township Cemetery cataloging. We are waiting for some information, mostly from the last 10 years, from the current Chassell sextant, Craig Austin. When the file is finished, we will update the copies given to the Township Office, the Chassell Heritage Organization for the Chassell Museum and the Michigan Tech Archives and place a link on the Houghton County Genealogy web site, 
which is a part of the US Genealogy Web site.

Article from the Daily Mining Gazette newspaper:

01/18/19/03

Finn Factor: Census offers local insights

One-third of Copper Country claims Finnish ancestry, federal statistics show

By Ryan Olson
Gazette Writer
HANCOCK — Viljo Lohela, of Hancock, said he’s proud of his Finnish heritage.
He is among the estimated 18,000 people of Finnish ancestry in the Copper Country, according to the 2000 census.
Dining at the Kaleva Cafe in Hancock Friday morning, he said he identifies himself as an “American of Finnish descent.” Lohela, whose parents came from Finland, said he’s proud so many people in the area claim Finnish ancestry.
“There’s a lot of people here proud to be Americans too, but they’re proud of the descent,” Lohela said.
According to the 2000 census, nearly a third of about 55,000 Copper Country residents identify themselves as being of Finnish descent. The percentage of people of Finnish ancestry throughout the rest of Michigan and the United States is far less — 1.02 percent and .22 percent, respectively.
Jim Kurtti, director of the Finnish American Heritage Center at Finlandia University, said the large number of Finns in the Copper Country doesn’t surprise him. He said there are many possible reasons why the Finnish population remains so large locally — primarily the migration from Finland to work in the region’s copper mines.
“This was very much a funnel for many of the Finns coming into the U.S.,” Kurtti said.
He said the large number of Finns in the area helped establish Finnish culture in the area with many commercial services catering specifically to Finns.
“There were enough Finns here that it has affected the cultural impact of the area,” he said.
Brian Hoduski, museum curator for Keweenaw National Historical Park, said the migration into the Copper Country during the 1800s mirrored immigration throughout the country.
“The ethnic mix today is reflective of the mix of the immigrants that came principally from Europe to work in the mines and to better their lives,” Hoduski said.
According to the census, 17.59 percent of the Copper Country claims German heritage — close to the 15.24 percent nationwide. About 9.3 percent of the Copper Country linked their ancestry with the English — above the 8.71 percent of people across the country.
Hoduski said many European groups came to work in the mines, and their families chose to remain.
“Their families stayed in the area because the Upper Peninsula is similar to the countries of origin,” Hoduski said.
One possible reason those of Finnish descent continue to dominate the Copper Country in the area of ancestry is because there are few new people moving into the region.
“Pretty much the population has been here for awhile,” Kurtti said.

List of all Houghton County Cemeteries, source: www.michigancemeteries.libraryofmichigan.org
and a source from: http://mi.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17445_19270-60689--,00.html 

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