Illinois Bible Records

United States Illinois  Illinois Bible Records



A family Bible is a designation given to a Bible which has family information recorded on pages within the book. This has been a tradition among many families and is a good source of information about immediate family members and relatives, including names of parents, children, their spouses as well as their dates of birth, marriage and death. This is a valuable resource because, if the information is recorded as the event occurs, the information is regarded as being reliable. Also, for some families, Bible records may have the only recorded vital statistics information. Generally, family Bibles are passed down to succeeding generations, but those that are no longer in possession of the family may be at a historical or genealogical society.

Illinois State Genealogical Society Collections

 * The Illinois State Genealogical Society (ISGS) has an on-going project which was established in 1988 to collect and preserve family Bible records. The Family Bible Record page on their website lists the surnames of those Bible records collected.


 * The Family History Library (FHL) also has a transcription of many of these Bible records:


 * Illinois State Genealogical Society, Family Bible Records. Two Volumes. Springfield, Illinois: The Society, 1990–94.Other Libraries (WorldCat); Other Libraries (WorldCat) and.
 * Family Bible Record Copies Collected by the Illinois State Genealogical Society’s Family Bible Records Project, ca. 1724–1987. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah,1994. Microfilm copy of the above FHL books.

Online Family Bible Resources
Start with the free Index to Early Bible Records (pre-1830; 17,000 entries).


 * USGenWeb Archives


 * Bible records compiled by Illinois Society, D.A.R., 1968-1969. on www.ancestry.com ($)


 * Bible records compiled by Illinois Society, D.A.R., 1976-1977 on www.ancestry.com ($)


 * Many periodicals publish family data from Bible records. These are referenced in the "Families" section of the PERiodical Source Index ('PERSI'), described in the "Periodicals" section.


 * Bible Records Online

Family History Library Collections

 * The Family History Library (FHL) has several collections of family Bible records for Illinois including the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and county collections. These records can be found in the FamilySearch Catalog at www.familysearch.org using a Place Search under:


 * ILLINOIS - BIBLE RECORDS
 * ILLINOIS,[name of County] - BIBLE RECORDS


 * Kirkham, E. Kay. An Index to Some of the Bibles and Family Records of the United States: 45,500 References as Taken from the Microfilm at the Genealogical Society of Utah. Two Volumes. Logan, Utah: Everton Publishers, 1984. Other Libraries (WorldCat); Volume 2 includes Illinois. Includes additional DAR Bible, cemetery and family record collections for Illinois, indexed by surname.

National Archives and Records Administration Collections
Copies, or abstracts of old family Bibles that are no longer known to exist, may survive in Revolutionary War Pension application files at NARA, Washington, D.C., which are available online at three commercial websites: Ancestry, Footnote, and Heritage Quest Online.