Illinois State Genealogical Society Blog

Illinois 250: History in the American Bottom

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 17:02:28 +0000

Join us as we dive into the deep and diverse history of southern Illinois. The full-day conference on Saturday, October 24, will feature three tracks of lectures from a variety of speakers, focusing on immigrant communities and ethnic heritage in southern Illinois, migration patterns, and military history, as well as a tech-focused AI workshop.

Registration

Speakers and their Presentations:

Darrel Dexter, an author, historian and high-school teacher from Cairo, writes about stories gleaned from his research of slavery in Illinois at Southern Illinois University's Morris Library.

Tracing the Genealogy of John Willis Menard
Slavery in Southern Illinois

LaDonna Garner, M.A., is a Professional Genealogist & Historic Consultant focused on historical preservation and genealogical research in and outside Southeast Missouri.

The Great Migration and the Midwest
Investigating Digital Newspapers for Illinois & Missouri Families

Laura Kovarik has been involved in genealogy for more than thirty years. Her experience includes leadership, educational, and committee positions with genealogical societies at the international, state and local levels.

French Settlement in Illinois: Pre-Statehood to 1860

Dr. David McDonald, The Preacher Genealogist, has a genealogy practice in Madison, Wisconsin, called Old Northwest Research, LLC. He has been actively engaged in genealogical research for 50 years and has taught all across the United States

The Draper Manuscripts
Butternuts to Illinois Prior to the Civil War

Robin McDonough is the Outreach and Programming Coordinator for the Emerson History & Genealogy Center at the St. Louis County Library. Robin has been researching her family's genealogy for over twenty-five years, including her German lineage.

Germany Genealogy Resources at the Emerson History & Genealogy Center

Pat Stamm has lived in St. Louis for the past 25 years. After beginning her own personal research, she started teaching genealogy at St. Louis Community College. Currently, she serves as the Education Manager of the National Genealogical Society and volunteers as the Education Director of St. Louis Genealogical Society.

What's in my Grandpa's WWII Military File and Where Is It?

Andrew Theising PhD, is professor of political science at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and coordinator of the Initiative for Urban Research in the College of Arts and Sciences. His research subfield is urban politics, with particular emphasis on industrial legacy issues in urban cores. He is the author, editor, or collaborator on five books, including the award-winning book Made in USA: East St. Louis (Virginia Publishing, 2003) – the first comprehensive scholarly account of East St. Louis, Illinois, and companion book to the Emmy-Award-winning public television documentary of the same name.

Immigration to East St. Louis: The Roles of Settlements

Eric Vavra has combined his interest in technology and passion for solving the mysteries of family history to become an avid Genealogist. He leverages skills from his professional information technology consulting career with over 25 years of experience in diverse global roles across project management, business, strategy, data analysis, and application development to enhance and accelerate his approach to genealogy.

AI & Genealogy –– Part 1
AI & Genealogy –– Part 2

Thank you to our hosts, the St. Clair County Genealogical Society.

CHICAGO NARA EMERGENCY!

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 18:47:11 +0000

For over 50 years, the Chicago regional NARA facility on South Pulaski has welcomed researchers from around the Great Lakes Region to explore their own history. Now it is being closed to reduce federal real estate costs. Local records are being packed up to ship to less accessible facilities. Local staff, with years of institutional knowledge, face uncertainty and loss. Chicago needs to know just what it is about to lose.

Next week, October 12th through 16th, volunteers will staff a lunchtime "reference desk" in Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago, near the Calder flamingo, from 11am to 1pm daily. Supporters are welcome any day of the week to hold signs and provide information. If you can only make one day in the week, we suggest Friday.

Location: North side of Federal plaza, near the intersection of Dearborn and Adams (look for the flagpoles)

What to Bring: signs in support of NARA Chicago and archives more generally, folding chairs, appropriate weather gear.

A CALL TO ACTION: SAVE OUR NATIONAL ARCHIVES

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 21:40:45 +0000

A CALL TO ACTION: SAVE OUR NATIONAL ARCHIVES

saveournationalarchives.org

Our National Archives Are Being Taken Out of Public Reach

On June 23, 2026, the National Archives and Records Administration quietly informed its own employees, not the public (NARA Notice 2026-037) of a plan to close the National Archives at Chicago and San Bruno, CA and to relocate their holdings to up to 12 different facilities spread across the country. The Chicago facility serves the people of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. San Bruno serves northern and central California, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific territories. Tens of millions of Americans are about to lose their regional window into the federal records including the actual Immigration and Naturalization records from all these areas.

This is not a routine matter of facilities management, and it should not be treated as one. The regional archives are not a real estate line item to be trimmed in pursuit of a leaner portfolio. They are public infrastructure of the most fundamental kind — the places where the American people go to examine the documentary record of their own government and their own families. When a regional archive closes, the federal government does not merely vacate a building. It withdraws from the people of an entire region their practical ability to see the evidence of their history. That is a loss no efficiency calculation can justify, and it demands the immediate attention of both the Archivist and the Congress.

These are not warehouses of duplicate paperwork. The vast majority of the records in Chicago and San Bruno are paper originals that exist nowhere else on earth. They have not been digitized; most of them, given their volume, fragility, and condition, cannot be digitized on any realistic timeline. For these records, the building is the access.

What is at stake in Chicago is the recorded life of the American heartland. The Chicago facility preserves 140,000 cubic feet of archival material recording the maritime logs, customs records, and lighthouse and life-saving service files that document commerce and catastrophe on the Great Lakes — the freshwater arteries on which the industrial Midwest was built. It holds records of federal relations with Native nations across the Great Lakes region: enrollment records, agency correspondence, and treaty-era documentation that tribal governments and citizens rely upon today for enrollment, land, and sovereignty matters. And it safeguards the federal court and agency records that chronicle the great labor history of the Midwest such as Pullman, Haymarket-era prosecutions, the steel and stockyard organizing drives, the litigation through which working people secured their rights. These are not regional curiosities.

As of October 13th, NARA will begin moving records out of state. The first ones scheduled are the Railroad Retirement Board records – even though the organization is headquartered in Chicago. Others to be moved include the NASA records from the John Glenn Research Center.

The NARA at Chicago collection also contains:

Immigration and Naturalization records since 1929
Bureau of Indian Affairs tribal and census records
Chinese Exclusion Act records
The Maritime and Coast Guard disaster records of the Great Lakes
Original Federal Court records of all six states going back to 1800

What We Are Asking You to Do

Circulate this alert to your full membership, your boards, your newsletters, and your partner organizations. Speed matters: relocation activity could begin immediately.
Write to your senators and representatives. Demand three things: a halt to all relocation until genuine public consultations are held in both regions; congressional action to fund a real regional archives system; and full transparency on where every record group is going.

Personal letters describing how you and your organizational use of these records are the

most powerful tool we have.

Find your U.S. Representative by ZIP code: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
Contact your U.S. Senators (listed by state): https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm
Full member directory with committee assignments: https://www.congress.gov/members
At the very least, sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-closure-of-the-national-archives-at-chicago. Or use the QR code below to link to the Petition with your cellphone camera.

The National Archives was founded on a radical and simple idea: that in a democracy, the government's records are the people's property, and the people must be able to see them. A national archive that retreats from the nation, that consolidates the public's history into a handful of distant buildings, keeps the paper but breaks the promise. We are not asking for anything new. We are asking that a promise made to every American, be kept, in perpetuity.

ISGS Annual Meeting October 18, 2026

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 03:34:20 +0000

The Illinois State Genealogical Society will hold its Annual Member Meeting via Zoom

at 7:00 pm CT on Sunday, October 18th, 2026.

The Annual Meeting will include the announcement of the 2026 ISGS Honors and Awards recipients, the results of the 2026 ISGS election, as well as other important information about your society.

To register to attend the Annual Meeting, please click on the following link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1jEykEUWTy6PDNjIYhvuNg

Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email with directions on how to join the Annual Meeting. The ISGS Newsletter is also due in the next few days.

The 2026 ISGS election will take place via internet ballot. Since we are meeting virtually, "nominations from the floor" must be made virtually as well. If you wish to nominate someone for a 2029 Director position, those nominations should be sent by October 2, 2026, to the ISGS President at: isgspresident@ilgensoc.org.

The ISGS Board recommends the following candidates for the 2026 Election. Candidate biographies and photos will be posted on the Members Only homepage of the ISGS website in the next few days (members must log in to view the candidate information). All eligible voting members will be receiving a separate email in early October with voting instructions. Voting will be conducted between October 7th and October 17th. The results of the election will be presented at the Annual Membership Meeting.

Here are the current candidates for the three 2029 Director positions.

ISGS 2029 Directors (3-year term)

EvaAnne Johnson Genoa, IL

EvaAnne Johnson is a Genealogy and Local History Librarian in the Chicagoland area. She earned a Master of Library and Information Science (MS/LIS) degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a Bachelor of Arts from Illinois College.

Wesley Johnston, Indio, CA

He holds Bachelor's (Northern Illinois University) and Master's (University of Illinois at Springfield) degrees in Mathematics and a Master's (UIS) in History. He served on the ISGS Long Range Planning Committee chaired by Lowell Volkel that reorganized ISGS and created its modern structure.

Bill Lear, Chatham, IL

He earned a bachelor's degree in U.S. History from St. Ambrose University and a master's degree in public history from the University of Illinois. He was the curator for the Illinois State Military Museum for eleven years. Bill is currently an archival conservator at the Illinois State Archives.

We welcome your participation in the 2026 ISGS Election and the Annual Membership Meeting.

What's all the hype associated with closing NARA facilities?

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Sun, 06 Sep 2026 17:49:11 +0000

The heart of the problem is simple: the overwhelming majority of the records held in Chicago and San Bruno exist on paper and nowhere else. NARA's own digitization efforts, however earnest, have reached only a small fraction of its regional holdings, and many of these materials — fragile case files, oversized bound volumes, brittle onionskin, records still under review — cannot be safely or feasibly digitized at scale within any realistic timeframe or budget. For these records, physical access is the only access. Relocating them to distant facilities does not consolidate them; it removes them from public reach. The National Archives at Chicago serves researchers across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. San Bruno serves northern and central California, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific territories. These facilities sit in major metropolitan areas precisely because that is where the public can reach them — by transit, on a day trip, on a working person's schedule. A teacher in Milwaukee, a tribal historian in Minnesota, a family in Oakland tracing a grandfather's immigration file cannot make regular research visits to a warehouse two thousand miles away. For them, relocation is indistinguishable from destruction of access.

Raise your voice NOW, it will make a difference.

Write your senators: https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm

Write your Congress: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

Sign the petition: https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-closure-of-the-national-archives-at-chicago

Award Nominations are Due August 1st

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 20:33:00 +0000

ISGS 2025 HONORS & AWARDS

NOMINATE TODAY!

JULY EVENTS!

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 14:35:00 +0000

JULY EVENTS!

North Suburban Genealogical Society

text
© 2020, copyright Illinois State Genealogical Society

New Resource for ISGS Members!

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 20:58:00 +0000

Index of the Insane in the State of IL, 1870

ISGS Fall Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 22:01:00 +0000

Our Spring Workshop was such a success and we are looking forward to the next one on September 6!

We would love to have member societies in the area join us to help promote their group. We are also looking for Door Prize donations for attendees.

This is a great opportunity for smaller societies and groups to interact with the genealogists in their community.

For more information on door prizes or table setup, contact Marketing at isgsmarketing@ilgensoc.org or Laura Chaplin at isgsnewsletter@ilgensoc.org

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 21:39:00 +0000

Northern Illinois Genealogical Conference
12 Jul 2025, McHenry County College, Crystal Lake

Early Bird registration extended through June 8

Do you miss GeneaQuest?
Then this Genealogical Conference is for you!

CAGGNI is one of seven genealogy societies that have come together to offer a local, in-person conference on Saturday, July 12, 2025, at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake. The Conference will feature speakers Peggy Clemmons Lauritzen, AG, Maureen Brady, Tina Beaird and Debra Dudek.

Registration is open now and ends on July 5, 2025. Early registration (through June 8) is $70; regular registration (June 1-July 5) is $75. For more information and to register, please visit https://www.mcigs.org/conference.html.

REGISTER NOW FOR THIS SUMMER'S IAJGS CONFERENCE

Registration is now open at www.iajgs2025.org for the 45^th International Conference on Jewish Genealogy to be held August 10-14 in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The last day for the Early Bird Registration rate is June 15 to experience four days of wonderful lectures, workshops, tours, films, and more!

The conference will begin Sunday, August 10^th with the traditional Share Fair, featuring genealogical societies and more from around the world. On Sunday evening, renowned DNA expert CeCe Moore will be the conference's Keynote Speaker. Lectures, workshops, and more will run through Thursday afternoon, covering a wide range of topics and geographical areas. A full listing of the conference programs and speakers can be found on the website at www.iajgs2025.org.

The May-June ISGS Newsletter is available online now!

noreply@blogger.com (ISGS Publicity) — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 20:48:00 +0000

Society News for April 2025

The North Suburban Genealogical Society Beginners Interest in Genealogy Group (BIGG)

will meet monthly at the Glenview Library. Our purpose is to provide direction and talk about basic research skills in a friendly interactive group setting. Our first meeting will be

April 1 at 7pm in the 2nd floor Tech Lab at Glenview Library.

If you are interested, we hope you and your friends or relatives will join us.

It is not necessary to register in advance but we ask that you do so at the Glenview Library

event page Event Page, so that we can have enough handouts for the attendees.

PCGS presents:

"The 45th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy is just around the corner, and we couldn't be more excited about the exceptional classes and presentations our programming committee has put together for August 10-14,2025, in Fort Wayne, Indiana."

The IAJGS blog post is already humming with conference news and updates. Today's post profiles three remarkable experts who will be sharing their knowledge and insights:

Jennifer Mendelsohn, Co-Founder of the Holocaust Reunion Project

Daniel Horowitz, Genealogy Expert at MyHeritage

Dr. Gary Phillip Zola, Lincoln Collection Expert with a special private tour opportunity

Click to read the full blog post - 👉🏻 https://www.iajgs.org/conference-countdown-meet-three-of-dozens-of-presenters-coming-to-fort-wayne/

Visit their Conference Website for the latest updates IAJGS Conference Website

Get a Preview of the NGS 2025 Family History Conference on 11 April

Are you curious about details of the National Genealogical Society (NGS)

2025 Family History Conference, Tales & Trails, in Louisville, Kentucky? Are you wondering if you will go?

Sign up for the Conference Preview via Zoom* and join us on Friday, 11 April, at 8:00 p.m.ET to get your questions answered and learn more about what is planned for 23-26 May

Get highlights of the program agenda from the plenary to the more than fifty lectures that will help you build skills during and after the conference.

You'll get valuable education by attending live sessions, and participating in Louisville gives you access to every lecture in the app through 15 July 2025.

Find out how adding

FOCUS: A Pathway to the Future for Genealogy and Family History Organizations

or a workshop or a tour can enhance your experience.

Learn about the special

Memorial Day event at Cave Hill Cemetery & Arboretum

Discover opportunities to enjoy time with fellow genealogists and family history enthusiasts through other unique, fun, informative events including luncheons, dinners, expo hall activities, and more.

👉Visit NGS partner https://conferencekeeper.org/ for all things conference related both in-person or virtual.

The ISGS Spring Workshop is just around the corner and you can attend virtually! Sign up now and don't miss it.

Below is an updated list of CAGGNI programming

19 Apr 2025

10:30 AM - 12:15 PM