Illinois Church Records

United States Illinois  Church Records



Church records and the information they provide vary greatly depending on the denomination and the record keeper. They may contain information about members of the congregation, such as age; date of baptism, christening, or birth; marriage information and maiden names; and death date. Records may include names of other relatives who were witnesses or members of the congregation. The members of some churches were predominantly of one nationality or ethnic group.

In the decades following statehood, the largest religious groups in Illinois were the Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches. These groups came primarily from the southern states. At the same time, Congregationalists, Lutherans, and members of the Reformed faiths came from the eastern states. Roman Catholics became numerous in Illinois after 1860, especially in the northern industrial areas. Several counties in the northeastern part of the state became havens for Lutheran Scandinavians.

Illinois State Archives has collected some early Illinois church records that were given to the Illinois State Library. The Family History Library has microfilms of records from Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist churches and copies of many Catholic records from the Chicago area. The library also has some published histories of various denominations, including the Catholic, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Brethren, Mennonite, and Baptist churches. See Tracing LDS Families for records of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in Illinois.

Church histories frequently provide valuable historical background for the communities the churches serve. Inventories of church archives are also available for several denominations. See United States Church Records for more repositories and major collections.

Most church records are scattered and remain in the custody of existing churches. Some, however, have been collected into central repositories, especially those from congregations that have merged or disbanded. To find the existance of records you may wish to write to the addresses given below to learn where records of an area are located. The Family History Library also has some church record collections. To learn what is available, go to the Family History Library Catalog at FamilySearch.org and, at the Place-Names Search, type in the name of the town or county where an ancestor lived. From the list of subjects choose "Church records" which will indicate what records are available for that locale.

Baptist
American Baptist Historical Society 1106 South Goodman Street Rochester, NY 14620 Phone: (716) 473-1740

The American Baptist Historical Society in Rochester, New York, is national in scope, though records in the archive cover primarily the eastern United States. The records are mostly statistical in nature. They may have some information about ministers and missionaries, but they may have little more than lists of lay members. Any records of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths were kept by the choice of the minister, not by mandate of the church. The departing minister may or may not have left his records with the church or a succeeding minister.


 * The Ministerial Directory of the Baptist Churches in the United States of America. Oxford, Ohio: Ministerial Directory Co., 1899. Digital version at Google Books. This 1899 directory of Baptist ministers lists biographical details about many ministers born or serving in the state:


 * Smith, Justin A. A History of the Baptists in the Western States East of the Mississippi, Philadelphia : American Baptist Publication Society, 1896. Ancestry.com ($) Digital version at Google Books.

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons)
Early church records, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for Illinois Wards and Branches can be found on microfilm and are located at the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City. The film numbers for each ward can be accessed through the Family History Library Catalog, or by refering to:


 * Jaussi, Laureen R., and Gloria D. Chaston. Register of Genealogical Society Call Numbers 2 volumes, Provo, Utah: Genealogy Tree, 1982. These volumes contain the film numbers for many (but not all) membership and temple record films.

For further information regarding how to access Early LDS church records see Early Church Membership Records and Tracing LDS Ancestors.

Lutheran
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA Archives) 8765 West Higgins Road Chicago IL 60631-4198 Phone: (800) 638-3522 or (773) 380-2700 Fax: (773) 380-1465

The ELCA Archives (formerly known as the ALC Archives or Archives of the American Lutheran Church) is the central archive for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States. If a church unit is still active, the archives will help locate its records. If a church has been disbanded, its records will be located in the archives. The archives will accept genealogy requests by mail. It has microfilm copies of records for many congregations, which can be borrowed for a small fee. A partial list of church records in the archive collection is listed in:


 * ALC Archives. ALC Congregations on Microfilm. Dubuque, Iowa: The Archives, 197–?. The records are arranged by state and city of congregation. Fiche 6330690 includes Illinois.

A bibliography of Illinois Lutheran Church Records and Histories can be found at The Genealoger.com Lutheran Genealogy.

Methodist
Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference United Methodist Church Historical Society 1211 North Park Street Bloomington, Illinois 61701 Phone: (309) 828-5092, ext. 227

The Illinois Great Rivers Conference UMC Historical Society was recently created through the merger of the Southern and the Central conferences and its records cover central and southern Illinois as well as records of some disbanded congregations. Members of the staff will do some searching of those records for a small fee.

Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary Attn: Archives 2121 Sheridan Road Evanston, Illinois 60201 Phone: (847) 866-3909

The Archive of the Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary houses the records of the Northern Illinois Conference of the Evangelical Methodist Church. In addition to records of disbanded churches, it has records of many Scandinavian congregations. The archive has no direct phone line, so you will need to make inquiries by mail. Selected records of the archive have been microfilmed and are in the Family History Library collection.

Find-A-Church gives a listing of Methodist churches in Illinois arranged by town and city.

Archdiocese of Chicago
Archives of the Archdiocese of Chicago Joseph Cardinal Bernadine Archive and Record Center Attn: Assistant Research Archivist 711 West Monroe Chicago, Illinois 60661 Phone: (312) 831-0711 The diocese includes the counties of Cook and Lake  The telephone number of the Archive and Record Center accesses a voice mail menu. Selecting the "reference" option allows a caller to place a request for genealogical research. The Family History Library has microfilm copies of parish records from the Archdiocese of Chicago to 1915. These may be accessed by typing Chicago, Illinois at the Place-names Search of the library catalog. Once at the list of subjects for Chicago, choose "Church records."

Diocese of Belleville
Diocese of Belleville 222 South Third Street Belleville, IL 62220 Phone: (618) 277-8181 The diocese includes the counties of: Alexander, Clay, Clinton, Edwards, Franklin, Gallatin, Hamilton, Hardin, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Lawrence, Marion, Monroe, Perry, Pope, Pulaski, Randolph, Richland, Saline, St. Clair, Wabash, Washington, Wayne, White, and Williamson

Many records of the Catholic Church records of this Diocese are available online through Family Search Records and is called The records can also be accessed through the Family Search Library Catalog by typing "Belleville Diocese" at the Keywords Search.

Diocese of Joliet
Diocese of Joliet 425 Summit St. Joliet, IL 60435 Phone: (815) 722-6606 The diocese includes the counties of: DuPage, Ford, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, Kendall, and Will

Diocese of Peoria
Catholic Diocese of Peoria 419 NE Madison Avenue Peoria, IL 61603 Phone: (309) 671-1568 The diocese includes the following counties: Bureau, Champaign, DeWitt, Fulton, Hancock, Henderson, Henry, Knox, LaSalle, Livingston, Logan, Marshall, Mason, McDonough, McLean, Mercer, Peoria, Piatt, Putnam, Rock Island, Schuyler, Stark, Tazewell, Vermilion Warren and Woodford

Diocese of Rockford
Diocese of Rockford 555 Colman Center Drive P.O. Box 7044 Rockford, IL 61108 (815) 399-4300 The diocese includes the counties of:Boone, Carroll, DeKalb, Jo Daviess, Kane, Lee, McHenry, Ogle, Stephenson, Whiteside, and Winnebago

Diocese of Springfield
Diocese of Springfield Catholic Pastoral Center 1615 West Washington St. P.O. Box 3187 Springfield, Illinois 62708-3187 Phone: (217) 698-8500 The diocese includes the counties of: Adams, Bond, Brown, Calhoun, Cass, Christian, Clark, Coles, Crawford, Cumberland, Douglas, Edgar, Effingham, Fayette, Greene, Jasper, Jersey, Macon, Macoupin, Madison, Menard, Moultrie, Pike, Sangamon, Scott, and Shelby

The Drouin Collection
Drouin Collection 1621-1967 at Ancestry.ca.

This French-Canadian collection has over 15 million genealogical and vital records entries; they were microfilmed by the Institut Généalogique Drouin. In Quebec, under the French Regime, there were two sets of records kept: a copy for the civil government archives and a copy for the ecclesiastical church archives. The Drouin collection is a civil copy of these entries. Please note that the cutoff date of this collection is in the early 1940s; only a small percentage of entries were covered from 1948 to 1967.

This collection is divided into six databases: 1. Quebec Vital and Church Records, 1621-1967 2. Ontario French Catholic Church Records, 1747-1967, 3. Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records, 1695-1954, 4. Acadia French Catholic Church Records, 1670-1946, 5. Quebec Notarial Records, 1647-1942, and 6. Miscellaneous French Records, 1651-1941. For details about these six databases, see "The Drouin Collection: Six Databases".

When searching these databases, be creative in the spellings as well as the various focuses in searching for an ancestor. The French language has many possible spellings for a name, as well as there are errors in the indexing.

Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records, 1695-1954 ($): This database only contains the French Catholic parish records from the United States; in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, and Pennsylvania. The types of records include baptisms, marriages, and burials as well as confirmations, dispensations, censuses, statements of readmission to the church, and so on. They are written mainly in French, as well as English, Latin, and Italian.

Missions
Many early missions were established by religious denominations to serve the Indians, including:


 * Abnaki Mission
 * Kaskaskia Mission (1674)

Websites

 * Church Angel lists churches in Illinois by cities and towns.