FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Illinois

Welcome to the Illinois WikiProject! We welcome contributors here. We are focusing on the county pages for the 102 current counties of Illinois and the 1 county (Dane) that was active for a short time and which no longer exist. We have built a foundation for a county page, with record type headings.

We invite you to add whatever you know about the records of the county or counties and/or the towns or cities in which you are interested. Working together, we can all benefit from the knowledge of community members on the Wiki.

If you have questions, or need some guidance on what to add or how to do so, feel free to contact the project leader or other team members.


 * Lise Embley, Project Leader
 * Lise Embley, Illinois Moderator

Current Tasks needing volunteers:


 * County boxes
 * Courthouse images. I'll do this one. Murphynw 23:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Town or city halls -- This is a Google Task -- We need to locate contact information for the city or town halls of the towns of Idaho.
 * Churches in the towns and cities of IIllinois -- This is a Google Task -- We need to identify churches, current and historical, in the towns and cities of Idaho.
 * Counties -- Add a list of known publications or links about the history of each county. See Owyhee County or Adams County as examples.
 * Towns -- For the towns of Eastern Idaho, check the names of LDS Wards (usually corresponding to the names of towns) in Andrew Jenson's Encyclopedic History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and summarize the town history under the history heading for the town. This task presumes access to the above named book. See Weston, Idaho for an example of information for "Quick Facts," "Geographical Location," and "History" (under Resources) were all taken from Jenson's Encyclopedic History...
 * Counties -- Cross link to information on ILGenWeb pages
 * Newspapers in the towns and cities of Illinois -- This task involves copying the list of newspapers available in the State Archives for each city or town to their respective page.

*Other tasks will be added later

Completed Tasks:


 * Proofreading and verifying of links -- County pages have now been proofread for typos and the links on those pages verified. This will need to be done periodically and on-going. THANK YOU
 * City and town pages -- New pages need to be created for cities and towns in some counties, using a prototype with formatted headings -- THANK YOU -- Due to you wonderful team members, this task is now complete, at least for now. Later, we may add content to the pages created and also create modified pages for unincorporated communities, but if we do, we will add a new task.
 * County Commissioners' Records -- A description of these records needs to be added in the pages for all 44 counties. -- THANK YOU -- Another Project task completed!
 * Counties -- Add a generic statement about tax records in the counties of Idaho. Such a statement should read "Existing tax assessment rolls for [name of county] County should be in the county courthouse in [name of county seat] or in the Idaho State Archives in Boise." Be sure to add the name of the county and the name of the county seat in place of the brackets in the above statement. See Canyon County for an example.-- THANK YOU -- Virtually completed; additional information will need to be added as more information about these records is discovered.

Project Scope
Illlinois has 102 existing counties, two counties that existed for a time and have gone out of existence, and other counties that were anticipated, named, but never were organized.

Items of Information

 * Photographs of the county courthouse in each county are needed to be added to the county page, similar to what has been done for Adams County.
 * Names of populated places and communities within each county need to be identified and added, similar to what has been done for Bannock or Owyhee County

Record Types

 * For each of 15 record types, general and specific statements about existing collections, their use, and their accessibility need to be compiled. A general statement regarding records, similar to the one for Ada or Bannock Counties, should be in place for each of the 44 counties. Many have already been added.

Cemetery Records
For cemetery records, a table showing all known cemeteries and any transcriptions or online photos of tombstones needs to be compiled. -- '''First cut at lists of cemeteries in all 44 counties has been completed. If additional cemeteries are identified or if additional links are found, they need to be added.'''

Census
A brief statement referring the user to the state census page has already been included. If there are peculiarities for each county, they should be added under this heading (see Oneida County for an example of a specific note).

Church
A partial list of wards and other church units of The Church if Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) has been added. Details of church records of other denominations is sorely lacking and should be added.

County Commissioners' Minutes
A statement similar to the one for Ada County needs to be compiled and added for each county.

Court
A summary of microfilmed court records available at the Idaho State Library and Archives (PARL) and at the Family History Library needs to be added (see Ada County for an example). A sub-heading regarding Judgment Books will be added under this heading.

Histories
Any published county histories or histories of the county available online should be listed and linked.

Land and Property, including Mining Claims and Water Rights
A summary of microfilmed land and property records available at the Illinois State Library and Archives (PARL) and at the Family History Library needs to be added (see Ada County for an example).

Maps
If possible, at least one fairly modern map and one historical map for each county, available online, should be identified, with a link provided.

Military
World War I Draft Registration statements have been added to all counties. Some discharge records, etc. from the counties have been added. Others should be added as they are located.

Miscellaneous Series
This set of records exists in most counties and includes a variety of subjects of interest to genealogists and family historians. A descriptive statement regarding them will be added.

Naturalization and Citizenship
Statements regarding naturalization and citizenship have been added for some counties. These records for other counties should be researched and added.

Newspapers
Current and historical newspapers should be identified and listed, at least to the level of detail as for those for Ada County. PARL has an inventory of historical newspapers in their collection, arranged by town. They can be summarized at the county level, and details of titles and years covered could be added to a town or city page, if one has been created.

Pension
Statements regarding Mothers' Pensions and Old Age Pensions, where they apply, have already been added to each county.

Probate
A summary of microfilmed probate records available at the Idaho State Library and Archives (PARL) and at the Family History Library needs to be added (see Ada County for an example). These records should also be listed under the court records heading.

Taxation Records
Statement such as that for Bannock County Taxation needs to be added under that subject for all counties with no statement about Taxation. Any tax records transferred to the Idaho State Historical Society's Public Archives and Research Library should be identified and listed.

Vital Records
A statement similar to the one for Ada County needs to be compiled and added for each county.

Libraries and Historical Societies
Information about local libraries and/or historical societies with manuscript collections regarding the history of the locality and genealogy of its residents should be indentified and added, with links as appropriate.

Important Websites
Websites of importance to those doing research in each county need to be compiled, including links to USGenWeb and other websites, and added.

Contributors
Project Leader -- Lise Embley

Team members --

Project members: you can also add User WikiProject Illinois to your user page to identify yourself as a member of the project and add your name to the Category:WikiProject Illinois participants.

Current Sprint: 3 May 2010 to 1 June 2010
Focus for this sprint will be on continuing to add content to the County pages. We will also continue to add internal links between counties, state, city, and topics pages. 