MONROE — For the last 13 years, Green County Genealogical Society (GCGS) members have been contacting Town Boards, to obtain permission to scan and digitally preserve their very old Township records. These records reveal the names of our ancestors, some as far back as 1850.

They have digitally scanned records from towns of Adams, Albany, Cadiz, Clarno, Jefferson, Jordan, Monroe, Spring Grove, Sylvester, and York. After scanning,, the town clerk is given a digital copy of all documents, at no cost.

When searched for by town clerks, they are frequently found moldy and deteriorating, and beyond repair, but with scanning, they can be made more readable.

They would like to preserve old records from Towns of Brooklyn, Decatur, Exeter, Mt. Pleasant, New Glarus, and Washington, and are also interested in old city and village records. Citizens of a village, city, or town that would like municipality historical records preserved should contact officials call the GCGS Research Center (608-328-7436) from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Tuesdays or contact Bill Holland at 734-735-3475.

Wisconsin’s records laws keep tax records private for 70 years, so records before 1945 are open to the public and many are lost due to benign neglect. Many have even been ignorantly discarded because of lax storage, which is a violation of the law. 

Legal repositories for preservation of old records at no cost include Southwest Area Research Center, located in Ullsvig Hall at UW Platteville and the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison.