Over the past several weeks, my brain has been immersed in the surnames Smith - Mead - Curtis - Palmer. Branches of my maternal grandfather's family who trekked from Massachusetts to Vermont to Ohio and finally to Michigan. More detail than I possible could have imagined - learning about their births, marriages, deaths, estates, land transactions...the list goes on! Truly fascinating research for a special project that has stretched my genealogical skills to the max. At one point, I felt like a private investigator calling obscure libraries in search of obscure, defunct local newspapers in teeny-tiny local libraries in parts of Michigan I've never even seen. I owe a debt of gratitude to the power of genealogical serendipity (mentioned before HERE ). One final, magical detail of this research project emerged last week in the form of a sweet librarian in Coopersville, Michigan who voluntarily found the following obituary on microfilm, scanned, and emailed a copy to me