Manitowoc and Two Rivers - Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shore
Manitowoc, Two Rivers. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.
Whose archive this ground was
| Years | Who held it | Whose archive that means |
|---|---|---|
| 1500–1673 | Before registers | no registers survive Before registers. |
| 1673–1835 | Menominee country and the fur trade | no registers survive French fur traders first arrived in 1673 and the Northwest Fur Company set up a trading post in 1795. The Menominee ceded the land to the United States in the 1836 Treaty of the Cedars. |
| 1835–1851 | Territorial legislature: Brown County, then Manitowoc County | National Archives Catalog (NARA) · FamilySearch Land sales were authorised in 1835 before the Menominee transfer, and the first recorded buyers were William Jones and Louis Fizette on 3 August 1835. The county dates from 1836 in one source and from 1838, when the territorial legislature separated it from Brown County, in another; it was organised in 1848. |
| 1851–1870 | State of Wisconsin - Manitowoc village | National Archives Catalog (NARA) · FamilySearch Manitowoc was chartered as a village on 6 March 1851 and replaced Manitowoc Rapids as county seat in 1853. German, Norwegian, British, Irish and Canadian immigrants were among the early settlers. |
| 1870–2026 | State of Wisconsin - city of Manitowoc | National Archives Catalog (NARA) · FamilySearch · Chronicling America Manitowoc was incorporated as a city on 12 March 1870. In the 2000 census 53.7 percent of county residents reported German ancestry. |
The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.
See the whole span, 1500–2026, on the map →
The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.