Genealoger

• Illinois Genealogy
• Adoption
• Background Sources
• Bibliographies
• Biographies and Name Indexes
• Business and Commerce
• Cemeteries
• Census Records
• Church Records
• County Resources
• Court Records
• Databases
• Diaries, Letters and Stories
• Digital Collections
• Directories
• Ethnic Resources
• Family Bibles
• Family Histories
• Forums and Listservs
• General Sites
• History
• Illinois Area Depositories
• ILGen Web
• Immigration Records
• Land Records
• Libraries and Archives
• Local History
• Manuscripts
• Maps
• Marriage and Divorce Records
• Military Records
• Museums and Historical Sites
• Naturalization Records
• Newspapers and Periodicals
• Obituaries
• Oral History
• Photographs
• Prison Records
• Probate Records and Wills
• School Records
• Societies
• State Institutions
• Tax Records
• Transportation
• Vital Records
• Yearbooks

Illinois Genealogy Resources

Chicago and Cook County

Databases

• Chicago Ancestors. Using Google Maps as its base, the Newberry library has mapped the location of churches, homicide statistics, Chicago neighborhood information, photos and more. Information on the site includes:
   
  • Church locations for Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches along with information on where to access the church records.
  • Locations of schools whose yearbooks are held by The Newberry Library or the Chicago History Museum.
  • Bibliographies for each of Chicago's 77 community areas.
  • Homicide records covering 1912-1917 and eventually will include 1910-1930.
  • Photos of Chicago buildings.
     
• Chicago City Council Proceedings Files, 1833–1871
   
• Chicago Police Department Homicide Record, 1870–1930  The Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) in Chicago created this index of Chicago homicide victims.
   
• Cook County Assessor's Office: Property Search  Search by property index number and property class.
   
• Cook County Coroner's Inquest Record Index, 1872–1911. Created by IRAD. Lists coroner's inquests, which are investigations of deaths under criminal or suspicious circumstances.
  
• Cook County Genealogy Online.  Online birth, death and marriage records available online from the Cook County Clerk's Office.
   
• Cook County, Illinois - Free Public Records Links.

Commercial Databases

• Ancestry.com. Subscription database that offers resources to Cook County researchers: Chicago's Irish Families Database (late 19th and early 20th century obituaries, gravestone transcriptions, church records, and published biographical resources); Chicago Voters Registration for 1888 to 1890 and 1892 (Chicago, Lake View, Hyde Park, and Town of Lake, includes names, addresses, nativity, and naturalization status); Chicago Obituaries (Obituaries from Chicago Sun Times, 1988-1995 and Chicago Tribune, 1988-1997); and Notable Digitized Books.
   
• HeritageQuest Online. Subscription site available through libraries that offers census records and a large collection of digitized books.
   
• OCLC First Search. An online subscription service to academic databases in science, humanities, business, and other subjects. These are available through some libraries. OCLC also offers WorldCat, a database of library holdings around the world. Most large public libraries and academic libraries belong to WorldCat and offer it on their public access computers.