Illinois Bible Records

Bibles were often given to a bride as a wedding gift, and families recorded in them information about immediate family and close relatives. Bible records can include birth, marriage, and death dates; parents’ names; and names of children and their spouses, including maiden names. A person’s age at the time of death may be given. Many families kept Bible records from 1850 to more recent times, although few of these records have survived. Some have been donated to local libraries or societies.

Many Bible records are transcribed in:

Illinois State Genealogical Society, Family Bible Records. Two Volumes. Springfield, Illinois: The Society, 1990–94. (FHL book 977.3 V2is.) A microfilm copy of the original papers of this ongoing project is:

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. (FHL films 1954965 and 1954966, item1.)

Chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in Illinois have also collected some Illinois Bible records over the years. One such collection is described in the "Cemeteries" section. Additional DAR Bible, cemetery, and family record collections for Illinois are indexed by surname only in:

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. (FHL book 973 D22kk; fiche 6089184 [set of 4 fiche.) Volume 2 includes Illinois.

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.

Illinois Bible records can be found in the Family History Library Catalog by using a Place Search under:

ILLINOIS- BIBLE RECORDS

ILLINOIS, [COUNTY]- BIBLE RECORDS