Web site visitors can find information in a variety of ways:

Geographically: A state map appears on the left side of each page. The map is divided into regions and counties. If you click on one of the regions, a larger regional map will appear. To display the county's home page, click on a county in the regional map.

A drop-down list of counties appears under the state map on each page. Click the down arrow to scroll through the list of counties. Click on a county name and press the Go! button to display the county's 'home' page.

Search Box: A box labeled SEARCH FOR A NAME appears on the left side of each page. Type a place or person name in the search box and click the Seek button. The search engine will display a list of results for any place name or person containing the searched term. For example a search using the word "red" will return these results among others: Lower Red Cedar Lake, Red Cedar River, Red Lake, Red River, Red Water Creek, Redwood, Upper Red Cedar Lake, Fred Rose and Mildred Dick.

The search results are listed alphabetically by category and county. Click on a listing to view the text. The book text will display with the searched term shown in boldface type.

Navigation Links: Navigation links appear on the left side of each page. There are five categories of navigation links:

• Townships and Villages lists current and defunct cities, townships, and villages
• Lakes and Streams lists creeks, lakes, rivers, and streams
• People lists individuals who were significant in the history or name of a place
• Other Items lists other places such as glacial lakes, islands, parks, post offices, reservations, railroad stations, valleys and waterfalls.
• Names From Other Languages Or Places lists place names that were taken or translated from other languages, named after another place or were known by a different name.

The function of the navigational links changes as you move around the web site. At the statewide level the links display information about all places or people in the entire state; these links are prefaced with the word "All". At the county level, the links provide information about the selected county only.

When you click on any of the links, a new page will display two alphabetized list boxes. The list boxes contain the names of places or people in the category you selected. Click on an entry within the list box and press the Seek button below the box.

The book text will display with the selected entry shown in boldface type. If you find more than one reference to the entry, they will be listed alphabetically by county. For example, "Mud Lake" exists in many counties so multiple references to Mud Lake will be displayed.

Note: There are references to places and people in the text that do not appear in any list boxes and cannot be found using the SEARCH FOR NAME box. These places and people are not included in the book's index, which was used to generate the searchable terms in the database.