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Materials collected by Helen Blair Lamar and subsequently donated to the Blair Society for Genealogical Research and pertaining to the Austin Blair family of Michigan and related family lines, the Hanks family and the North family. The collection, arranged by family name and then by individual, includes original with some typed transcripts of family letters, diaries, legal documents, poetry, personal items, and visual materials.

Helen Blair Lamar kept the papers of the Blair, Hanks and North families for many years. After her death they were given to the Blair Society for Genealogical Research, which in turn donated them to the Bentley Historical Library. This collection exemplifies the slightly random character of family papers accumulated over several generations. There is a wide variety of material on a large number of individuals. In an attempt to keep things as clear as possible, the majority of the papers--manuscript, typescript and printed--have been arranged by FAMILY GROUPS which are subdivided by Personal Name and arranged by generation. This is followed by a small second series of miscellaneous PRINTED MATERIALS. A substantial third series of VISUAL MATERIALS includes Scrapbooks, Photographs, Daguerreotypes and Ambrotypes, Tintypes and Glass Plate Negatives.

Personal correspondence, 1842-1941; Civil War letters, 1862-1865, of C. V. DeLand of Co. C, Ninth Michigan Infantry, later Colonel of the First Sharpshooters during the Civil War; correspondence concerning early Jackson history, indentures, school records, temperance and abolition material and other records pertaining to family affairs and the town of Jackson, Michigan. Also contains photographs, with family portraits and photo of an old mill in Jefferson, Mich.