Students discover family history at Mitchell Research Center

Olivia Hajicek

Assistant Editor

An eighth grade Davis Middle School history teacher is partnering with Mitchell Research Center to help students learn more about their ancestry.

A group of four or five students started visiting the center this semester every Thursday to explore their family history.

Teacher John Coakley said he has helped his students do ancestry research in the classroom, but he said doing it at the Mitchell Research Center really contributes to the students’ experience.

“It's just oozing with history and that feeling of nostalgia,” Coakley said.

Coakley said he has been looking into his own genealogy for about 15 years and even found information about his father’s birth family.

“I knew my dad was adopted, but a few years ago, my dad did not know who his biological parents were, and we ended up finding who they were,” Coakley said. “We’ve done some searching, some digging, and even traveling to where my dad was born and finding local records.”

Coakley said he shares his passion for family history with his students, beginning when he first starts teaching them.

“We study all these people that lived hundreds of years ago, but we have no idea who our own family is, our grandparents, our great grandparents, and their energy, their decisions, who they were, has really been poured into us,” he said.

“I think at the very least, we could do them credit in figuring out who these people were, why they did what they did, and knowing that their history is really wrapped up in our history and our future.”

Coakley said for the last couple of years he has assigned his students a family history project where he hands them pedigree charts and has them talk to family members to fill in as many generations as they can.

Melanie Shearman, a Mitchell Research Center volunteer, said her cousin’s son was in Coakley’s class last year.

“My cousin called me and said, ‘Would you sit down with Benny and go through the family genealogy?’ I said, ‘Sure, no problem,’” Shearman said.

Shearman said she met with him after school at the Mitchell Research Center.

“Ben would walk up to the Mitchell, and I’d sit down, and we’d start going through the genealogy,” she said.

While the program is new, it is building on a legacy that goes back to Shearman’s own eighth grade teacher, Fran Tipton. Shearman also turned to her relative for help.

“When I was in eighth grade, my eighth grade history teacher did the same assignment,” Shearman said. “I went home, and Mom and

Dad helped me with it. But my mom said, ‘You know what, your great aunt has been doing this for 10 years.’ So they called my great-aunt Selma and she had me over for Saturday. I think I was there for six hours.”

Beginning with the information she got from her great aunt, Shearman began piecing together her own genealogy. After using her research to help her cousin’s son, Shearman said she wanted to do more.

“I was sitting there thinking, if Mr. Coakley does this every year, what a great way to bring everybody in here,” Shearman said. “So I approached Mr. Coakley and made the suggestion that they come down.”

Coakley and Shearman are now teaming up to offer an after-school program for students who would like to research their family history.

For children whose families are from the area, volunteers have helped find old

Officers respond after dogs kill sheep

By Olivia Hajicek Assistant Editor

Officers from the City of Hillsdale Police Department killed one dog and wounded another on Tuesday, after the dogs killed several sheep and then attacked them.

Police responded to a call about two vicious dogs at 130 State St. around 7:15 a.m., where they found the dogs had already attacked and killed several sheep belonging to a local family.

“I got a call early that morning from my friend on whose land the sheep were grazing at that time. He told me what happened, and I got to the scene as fast as I could and saw the carnage,” said Jacob Bruns, owner of the sheep and a student in the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship.

yearbooks and other historical records. For children whose families come from out of state, volunteers help find information on FamilySearch or Ancestry.

Carol Shearman, who volunteers at the Mitchell Research Center with her daughter, said one of the students found his birth announcement in their file of birth and death announcements from the paper.

“He was just excited about finding that his baby picture was in there,” she said.

Coakley said four to five students participate every week. He said he hopes to expand the program and may open it to seventh graders next year.

“There’s a lot of support at the center, but there’s a lot of self-direction, and we want the kids to make sure that they’re mature enough to do it,” Coakley said. “So we’re just starting with eighth grade. We may grow that next year.”