User:Lembley/sandbox2

Searching the Local Governmental Records Holdings Database
There are a variety of records available through IRAD that are of interest to genealogists. These records may have been created by communities or counties in Illinois, but are now gathered into regional “depositories” for safekeeping and access. The Local Governmental Records Holdings Database is the gatewide to those records. Three search fields are offered to that can be used individually or in combination to help limit your search results and find the specific information you seek.

First, go to the Local Governmental Records Holdings Database at the Illinois State Archives web site.

To Search by County:  Scroll through the list in the County field to select the county of interest and click [Submit Query].

To Search by Community/Municipality/Township:  Leave the County and Depository fields blank, type the name of the community in the Title field - e.g., (Nauvoo), as in the example – and click [Submit Query]. Not all communities have records housed at IRAD. To limit your results to township records, include “TWP” in the query.

To Search by Depository:  To see a list of all records available at a specific depository, leave the County and Title fields blank, select the Depository from the list, and click [Submit Query]. The results will be grouped by county and listed alphabetically by the title of the collection.

To see a full listing of all collections available through IRAD, see the IRAD publication "Local Government Records Listings Arranged by County." The document is a .PDF file, requiring Adobe’s Acrobat Reader to open, view, search, share and print. Adobe Acrobat Reader is available for download at no costs at adobe.com.