Cook County, Illinois Genealogy

United States &gt; Illinois &gt; Cook County

County Courthouse
Board of Commissioners 118 N. Clark St Chicago, IL

Quick History
Named for Daniel Pope Cook, one of the earliest and youngest statesmen in Illinois history, who served as the second U.S. Representative from Illinois and the first Attorney General of the State of Illinois.

Wikipedia

Parent County
15 January 1831: Cook County was created from Putnam County by an act of the Illinois State Legislature as the 54th county established in Illinois.(source:Wikipedia)

The unincorporated Fort Dearborn settlement at the mouth of the Chicago River became the new county's seat.

May 7, 1831: Cook County elected its first officials.

==== Boundary Changes ====

Several counties were set off:

16 January 1836: McHenry County

12 Jan 1836: Will County

9 February 1839: DuPage County

Record Loss
8-10 October 1871: Original marriage licenses for Cook County were destroyed by the Great Fire of Chicago. Marriages in the Illinois Statewide Marriage Index for Cook County prior to the fire are found in the Sam Fink Index. A copy of the Sam Fink Index is available on microfilm at the Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. The only additional information that this depository can provide is the name of the newspaper in which the marriage appeared. FHLC #1321939

Populated Places
Chicago, New Trier, Arlington Heights, Elmhurst, Berwyn Township, Schaumburg Township, more...

Neighboring Counties
DuPage | Kane | Lake | McHenry | Will | Lake County, Indiana

Biographies
The following might be helpful with Cook County, Illinois research:


 * The Chicago History Museum has a tremendous collection of on-line resources useful to family history researchers. Of particular interest are the Biographical Dictionary of Chicago, part of the Encyclopedia of Chicago, and a photo index of portraits taken by early Chicago photographers. The Museum's collection includes tens of thousands of images from early photographers E.L. Brand and C.D. Mosher, among others, all indexed by the name of the person in the photograph, as well as by photographer and studio. Their collection can be searched at the Chicago History Museum Research Center.

Cemeteries
Hidden Truths: The Chicago City Cemetery &amp; Lincoln Park Pamela Bannos © 2009 http://hiddentruths.northwestern.edu/home.html Online database. 1. Cemetery lot owners http://hiddentruths.northwestern.edu/lots.html Online map. http://hiddentruths.northwestern.edu/surveys.html

Census

 * Ward and ED Maps for 1870-1930 Censuses

Court
Clerk of the Circuit Court; Cook County, Illinois; Archives Department; Contact: Phil Costello; 50 West Washington; Room 1113; Chicago, IL 60602; Phone: 312-603-6601; Fax: 312-603-4974;

http://www.cookcountyclerkofcourt.org/?section=RecArchivePage&amp;RecArchivePage=6000 Microfilmed copies of the index books are located in Room 1113. Most of the older court files are held in an off-site, suburban warehouse. Records are generally retrieved once a week, on Wednesday. Requests made early in the week make the Wednesday run. Records retrieved on Wednesday are usually available for viewing on Friday. Link to the holdings of the Archives. http://www.cookcountyclerkofcourt.org/?section=RecArchivePage&amp;RecArchivePage=archive_holdings

Land
Property research in Cook County is challenging and very time consuming. It is the reason one generally needs to exhaust every other type of record for Cook County before tackling the land research. The pre-1985 documents are available only at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds office (118 North Clark Street; Room 120; Chicago, Illinois 60602; Phone: (312) 603-5050; Fax: (312) 603-5063; Office Hours, Monday through Friday: 8:00 a.m.--5:00 p.m.) http://www.ccrd.info/CCRD/controller

Township and Sectional Map of Cook County

http://www.ccrd.info/CCRD/il031/help/LegalExs.jsp

To do land research in Cook County, one needs to have the legal description of the property. It is possible to obtain a legal description if one has the "modern" address of the property.

Link to the Legal Description Search Request page at the Cook County Recorder of Deeds' Website.

http://www.ccrd.info/CCRD/il031/help/LegalDescHelp.jsp

In Cook County there are two (2) types of conveyance (indexes) systems. One is a “regular” system that uses a geographic index instead of Grantor-Grantee indexes. The other is a Torrens or Registry System. Used for only a portion of properties in Cook County, those that had a clouded-title situation. It was a means of registering title to land with a financial guaranteed by a government unit that the title was “good”. A court action established the title and every subsequent transaction for the property had to be registered. Transactions for Torrens properties are either written in red in the tract books or there is a “T” after the grantee’s name. The Torrens systems was phased out a number of years ago.

With a legal description in hand, one needs to locate the property in the specific tract book. There are 1000+ tract books for Cook County. The tract books are ledgers. Each transaction for a particular parcel of land is recorded chronologically in the books.

Identifying the records in the tract books is the first step. The numbers recorded in the tract books are transaction numbers. To locate the deed one needs to find the transaction number in the deed books, another set of indexes. There is another set of numbers in the deed books (paging books). These are the numbers for the volume or book, the page, and the item of the recorded instrument (deed). One then orders the microfiche for the document.

It is very expensive to make copies of property records in Cook County. The first two (2) pages of each document are $10.00 and then $1.00 for each additional page.

Pre-Fire land records are privately held by a title-guaranty company. One must make an appointment to view the records. These too are organized by legal description.

Another “quirk” to be aware of is out-of-county property recordings.

Naturalization
Cook County Clerk of Circuit Court has posted an index to their Natualization Declaration of Intentions. If you find the record in the index, you can order these records for a small cost. They also hold the petiti ons and naturalization certificates for the Superior Court. An index to the petitions and naturalization certificates from the Superior Court may be found in the Family History Library Catalog, film numbers 1,023,967-1,023,968.

Newspapers
Daily Herald story index (1901–1964) http://www.dailyherald.com/search/dhindex/index.asp?alpha=a

The Hyde Park Herald(1882–2008) http://hpherald.com/archive/ Digitized; searchable

Vital Records

 * Cook County Genealogy Online -- has more than 8 million birth, marriage, and death records for Cook County available online. (Fees are charged for obtaining copies.)
 * Wilmette Family History Center - has a large collection of Chicago and Cook County resources on microfilm. Available records include Chicago birth certificates, 1878-1915; Cook County marriage licenses, 1871-1916; and Chicago death certificates, 1878-1947. The Center also has all of the available Archdiocese of Chicago parish microfilms (records to 1915) and a complete set of Chicago city directories on microfilm. For more information, contact the center at (847) 251-9818.
 * Cook County, Illinois Birth Certificates, 1878-1922 Free indexes and images at FamilySearch-Record Search  Records include such information as name of child, birthdate and place, gender, race, maiden name of mother, name and occupation of father and record number.
 * Cook County, Illinois Birth Registers, 1871-1915 Free indexes and images at FamilySearch-Record Search  Records include such information as name of child, birthdate and place, gender, race, maiden name of mother, name and occupation of father and record number.
 * Cook County, Illinois Marriages 1871-1920 Name indexes and images of marriage licenses and returns recorded at Cook Co., including Chicago are available at FamilySearch-Record Search.  Includes such information as names of the bride and groom and date and place of marriage.

Societies and Libraries
Chicago Genealogical Society (P.O. Box 1160; Chicago, IL 60690-1160)

http://www.chicagogenealogy.org/aboutus.html

Online databases.

1. Vital Records From Chicago Newspapers, 1833-1848

2. Vital Records From Chicago Newspapers, 1849 and later

3. CGS Members Surname Database

The Czech &amp; Slovak American Genealogy Society of Illinois (P.O. Box 313; Sugar Grove, IL 60554) http://www.csagsi.org/ Library (T. G. Masaryk School; 5701 22nd Place; Cicero, IL 60804) Open second Saturday September through May from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. Online Resources 1. Cemetery and Church Resource Page 2. Topical Index to Korney Articles (1996–2009)

Irish American Heritage Center (4626 North Knox Avenue; Chicago, IL 60630; 773-282-7035)

http://irish-american.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=31&amp;Itemid=47

Library

http://irish-american.org/index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=18&amp;Itemid=86

Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois (P.O. Box 515; Northbrook, IL 60056-0515; info@jgsi.org) http://jewishgen.org/jgsi/index.html

Online databases. 1. Online Death Index Project http://jewishgen.org/jgsi/projects/deathsearch11.html

Polish Genealogical Society of America (984 North Milwaukee Avenue; Chicago, IL 60642-4101; PGSAmerica@pgsa.org) http://www.pgsa.org/index.php Library Hours: phone 773-384-3352 Online databases 1. Birth Index http://www.pgsa.org/CzuchBir.php 2. Dziennik Chicagoski Death Notice Index: 1890–1929 http://www.pgsa.org/dzien9029.php 3. Dziennik Chicagoski Death Notice Index: 1930–1971 http://www.pgsa.org/database.php 4. Marriage Index for Polish Parishes in Chicago through 1915 http://www.pgsa.org/CzuchMar.php 5. Poles of Chicago 1837–1937 http://www.pgsa.org/poleschicago.php 6. Polish White Eagle Association Index Search http://www.pgsa.org/PWEA.php 7. PRCUA Insurance Claim File Index http://www.pgsa.org/PRCUA/prcu.php 8. St. John Cantius Church Births 1893–1915 http://www.pgsa.org/stjohnk.php 9. SS. Cyril &amp; Methodius Church, Lemont, IL, Birth &amp; Death Index http://www.pgsa.org/stcyr.php 10. Holy Trinity School Class 1883, Chicago, IL http://www.pgsa.org/holytrinity.php 11. St. Hedwig Orphanage Census 1920, Niles Township, IL http://www.pgsa.org/sthedwigorph.php

Web Sites

 * The Cook County ILGenWeb Project, an member of The ILGenWeb Project, an affiliate of The USGenWeb Project.
 * The USGenWeb Archives Project for Cook County
 * Newberry Library Genealogy Collection and Links
 * FamilySearch.org Family History Library Catalog for Cook County.