Talk:Illinois, United States Genealogy

Beta testing changes made June 4, 2014.

No announcement was made, hoping to gather stats on visitors who come to the page naturally. When the beta is over (about two weeks), the page will be updated based on feedback and stats and replaced with a page entitled "Illinois Genealogy Research."

Bloggers and others will be notified in advance of that release, so many can give feedback and suggestions. Thank you. AdkinsWH 17:47, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Please post your comments here.

Mass of Confusion
I am a VERY experienced genealogist and Wiki user. This format is horrible. I cannot find the tab, button, area, or secret garden where the majority of Illinois topics are hidden. If want biographies, probate records, vital records, or any other Illinois topic I cannot figure out where they are hidden. The traditional format was alphabetical on the top page--understandable in one glance. This way I have to click, click, click to find a topic--and I still haven't. This is not only confusing, it will drive people away from the Wiki screaming in frustration. Have mercy, the beginners haven't any hope of being able to use this horrible confusion to find anything! Why oh why do "experts" have to categorize things and "simplify" by making beginners guess which group to go hunting through to find a topic? The old alphabetical list of topics was NOT difficult--this way is nearly impossible. DiltsGD 16:22, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Info for Danielle to move over to other pages
Old Info:


 * Illinois State Geneal-ogical Society webinars and events
 * Illinois Regional Archives Depositories (IRAD)
 * Newberry Library, Chicago
 * Learn Chicago big city research: history, places, and resources
 * FamilySearch Historical Record Collections includes 11 indexed and 6 image-only collections.
 * Cook County Genealogy Online is a free (requires registration) index of births 1871-1936, marriages 1856-1961, and deaths 1871-1991.
 * Cook County Birth Registers, 1871-1915 Index and 55,233 images. Search fields: first name, last name, place, year, parents' names.
 * Cook County Birth Certificates, 1878-1922 Index and 1,434,175 images. Search fields: first name, last name, place, year, parents' names.
 * Illinois County Marriages, 1810-1934 Index 9 percent complete; no images. Counties: Adams, Alexander, Bond, Boone, Brown, Champaign, Christian, Clark and Clay.
 * Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763-1900 Free statewide or countywide searches by groom's name, bride's name or both.
 * Cook County Marriages, 1871-1920 Index and images. Search fields: first name, last name, place, year, spouse's names.
 * Illinois Statewide Death Index 1878-1916 Free statewide or countywide name searches; no images. This is an on-going project.
 * Cook County Deaths, 1878-1922 Index and 1,429,365 images. Search fields: first name, last name, place, year, spouse's name, parents' names.
 * Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1945 Index only. Search fields: first name, last name, place, year, spouse's and parents' names.
 * Illinois State Census, 1855 Index and images. Search fields: first name, last name, place, spouse's and parents' names.
 * Illinois, Diocese of Belleville, Catholic Parish Records, 1729-1956 34,135 images of baptisms, communions, confirmations to 1907; marriages to 1930; deaths to 1956. Includes images of indexes in some volumes.
 * Northern District Naturalization Index, 1840-1950 1,493,775 petition index card images in Soundex number order for parts of IL, IN, WI, &amp; IA.
 * Illinois Probate Records, 1819-1970 427,770 images of wills, indexes and other estate documents.
 * Looking 4 Kin Genealogy &amp; Family History Network - Illinois
 * David Rumsey Map Collection for Illinois contains a large online collection of rare, old, antique historical atlases, globes, maps, charts plus other cartographic treasures.
 * The United States Vessel Enrollments for the Great Lakes region. The transcriptions are from a project that involved an attempt to transcribe all steamboat enrollments for Great Lakes ports prior to 1861, all vessels for Detroit and Cleveland up to 1861, and Buffalo up to 1841 are included in the file. The set includes 5741 enrolments in which just under 2000 individual vessels are named, over 6000 people were identified.