Databases for Illinois Ancestors



The state of Illinois has assembled a nice collection of databases that can assist you, especially if one or more of your ancestors spent any time in Illinois.

Their Databases of Veterans is impressive covering the Black Hawk War, War of 1812, Civil War, Mexican War and Spanish-American War. Plus there are some additional items included such as the Veteran’s History Project and the 1929 Illinois Roll of Honor. You just might be surprised a specific ancestor might show up in one of these databases, even if they didn’t live in Illinois, they could have lived in a neighboring state or territory.

Then there is the Illinois Death Index Pre-1916 and 1916-1950, such a wide range. Then there is the Marriage Index covering 1763-1900 or Peoria County Probate cases 1825-1887.

Provided are listing with the databases from many of the universities of Illinois with some interesting databases such as Ogle County Almshouse (poor house) Register Index from 1878 to 1933 or Shelby County Circuit Court Cases for 1828-1960.

The naturalization papers filed in Ogle County from 1872-1906 can prove to be very helpful if your ancestors filed in that county. For a larger city, there are the Chicago Police Homicide Records from 1870 to 1930. There might be some fascinating information there.

Any ancestor who was a medical doctor? Check out ‘the Physician Database’ with about 62,700 names of physicians and surgeons in Illinois. This is the hand-written listings.

For any of the databases, look for the box labeled ‘Search’ to look for any ancestors.

Photos: Chicago Homicides; Illinois Physicians and Illinois Veterans of the Spanish-American War.

Related FamilyTree.com Blogs:

Chicago and Illinois Vital Records

Boys in Blue from Illinois

Vintage Illinois Newspapers

< Return To Blog

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.