Illinois Historical Societies

This directory lists 17 historical societies, museums, and archives in Illinois, from the Chicago History Museum and the Illinois State Historical Society to county groups such as the Sangamon County Historical Society in Springfield. The guide below explains where Illinois records actually live, which of the state's free statewide indexes to search first, and how the regional archives system splits county records across seven university campuses.

Illinois became the twenty-first state on December 3, 1818, and today has 102 counties. Statewide birth and death registration did not begin until 1916, so most nineteenth-century vital events survive only in county clerk registers or church books. The defining record loss is the Great Chicago Fire of October 8-10, 1871, which destroyed Cook County's records: county births, deaths, and marriages restart in 1872, and pre-fire land records survive only in the holdings of a private title company.

Statewide Organizations

Major repositories in Illinois

The Illinois State Archives, a department of the Secretary of State, occupies the Norton Building in the Capitol Complex in Springfield. It holds county and state government records, early land grant records, Civil War military records, the federal and state censuses, and the statewide indexes described below. Rather than centralizing every county record, Illinois runs the Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) system, in which seven universities preserve county records for their region: Eastern Illinois University in Charleston (16 counties), Illinois State University in Normal (14), Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago (Cook County and the city), Southern Illinois University in Carbondale (23 southern counties), Northern Illinois University in DeKalb (18 northern counties), the University of Illinois Springfield (14 central counties), and Western Illinois University in Macomb (16 western counties). Find your county's depository on the IRAD regional map.

• Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, 112 N. Sixth St., Springfield: the state historical library, with family genealogies, county histories, cemetery inscriptions, atlases and plat books, oral histories, Civil War material, and newspaper microfilm for every Illinois county. Microfilm circulates through interlibrary loan and staff will search for a fee.
• Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St., Chicago: an independent research library with more than 17,000 printed genealogies plus local histories, censuses, military and land records for Illinois and the surrounding states (newberry.org).
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library: county histories, farmers' directories, and the Illinois Newspaper Project.
• Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St.: a research center holding more than 20 million manuscript items including letters, diaries, and muster rolls, strongest for early Chicago.

Illinois birth, death, marriage, and divorce records

Statewide registration began in 1916, with general compliance by about 1922. The Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Records, 925 E. Ridgely Ave., Springfield, issues certified copies from 1916 forward. For research you want the cheaper uncertified genealogical copy: IDPH will provide one for a birth that occurred 75 or more years ago, and for a death that occurred 20 or more years ago (but not before 1916). The same genealogical copies can be ordered from the county clerk of the county where the event happened. Deaths before 1916 are available only from the county clerk or from the IRAD depository that holds that county's registers. Details are on the IDPH genealogy page.

Marriage records are a county clerk record from the county's founding; only county clerks issue certified copies. The State Archives' Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763-1900, compiled with the Illinois State Genealogical Society from original county registers, tells you which county to ask. Divorces are court cases rather than vital records; look for them in the circuit court files of the county where the case was filed, many of which for older years have moved to the regional IRAD depository.

Cook County and Chicago records from 1872 onward are ordered through the Cook County Clerk; nothing earlier survived the fire.

Land, deed, and property records

Illinois is a federal-land state: after survey, unclaimed land was sold or granted through federal and state land offices, and the first private owner's purchase is the start of every chain of title. The State Archives' Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales database indexes more than 550,000 names of original purchasers and can be searched either by name or by legal description (township, range, and section); each entry gives sale type, acreage, and purchase date. The federal counterpart, the BLM General Land Office site at glorecords.blm.gov, indexes the patents themselves, including homestead, cash entry, and military warrant patents.

Before the American survey, the French settlements at Kaskaskia and Cahokia generated their own land claims; the Raymond H. Hammes Collection at the State Archives gathers early land records for those villages from 1671 to 1820.

Every later deed and mortgage is recorded in the county Recorder's office (in many smaller counties the County Clerk and Recorder is one office). Cook County deeds recorded before 1985 are available only through the county recorder of deeds office, and the pre-1871 land records that survived in private hands are held by a title-guaranty company that admits researchers by appointment. Our guide to tracing a property's deed history walks through grantor and grantee indexes step by step.

Newspapers and city directories

The Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections, run by the Illinois Newspaper Project at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Library, passed 3 million digitized pages in August 2025. It is free, full-text searchable, and lets users correct OCR errors. Besides general Illinois titles it contains subject collections: Farm, Field, and Fireside (Midwestern farm papers), a Black Newspapers collection, Collegiate Chronicle (student papers), and American Popular Entertainment. The companion Illinois Newspaper Project catalog records more than 6,500 Illinois newspapers with their towns, life spans, and the repositories that hold them, which is how you locate a title that has not been digitized.

Chronicling America at the Library of Congress adds Illinois titles, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library's microfilm covers every county. For Chicago in particular, our articles on Al Capone's Chicago and Route 66 in Illinois show how newspaper research fills in the story of a street or a roadside business. City directories remain the fastest way to track a family between censuses; see how to use old city directories and ask the Newberry or your local public library which years they hold.

State censuses, military records, and statewide indexes

Illinois took more state censuses than most states, though early ones survive only in fragments. The 1810 and 1818 territorial counts exist in part (the 1818 census was taken to prove the population needed for statehood). State censuses survive for 1820 (all but Edwards County), 1825 (Edwards, Fulton, and Randolph), 1830 (Morgan only), 1835, 1840, and 1845 (selected counties), and for 1855 and 1865 statewide, listing heads of household. The 1855 and 1865 counts are on FamilySearch and Ancestry; the State Archives' Name Index to Early Illinois Records (248 microfilm rolls) covers 1810-1855 and is also on FamilySearch.

The free statewide databases on the Illinois State Archives databases page are the backbone of any Illinois search:

• Illinois Statewide Death Index, pre-1916, built from county death registers, giving name, date, county, place, age, sex, and a citation to the original record.
• Illinois Statewide Death Index, 1916-1972, from IDPH certificates.
• Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763-1900.
• Public Domain Land Tract Sales, the original land purchasers.
• Civil War and other military service databases drawn from the Archives' muster rolls.

Researching a house or building in Illinois

The State Historic Preservation Office is the Division of Historic Preservation of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, One Natural Resources Way, Springfield. It decides which Illinois buildings go forward to the National Register of Historic Places, surveys historic and archaeological resources, reviews state and federal projects, and administers rehabilitation tax credits. Its public portal is HARGIS, the Historic and Architectural Resources Geographic Information System, relaunched on ArcGIS in 2021. HARGIS maps properties that are listed, determined eligible, or merely surveyed, but be aware of its stated backlog: surveys after 2003 and National Register listings after 2019 are not all entered yet, so an empty result is not proof that a building was never surveyed.

Order of work for an Illinois house:

• Chain of title at the county Recorder, then the original purchaser in the Public Domain Land Tract Sales database.
• Atlases and plat books at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, which show landowners by name on county maps across the late 1800s.
• HARGIS and the SHPO survey file for any existing documentation.
• County tax assessment jumps, explained in our article on dating a house, and the broader checklist in researching an old building's history.

Tips for working with Illinois historical societies

Illinois has three overlapping layers of local groups. County societies such as the McHenry County Historical Society and the DeKalb County History Center usually run a museum and hold plat books, photographs, and obituary files for the whole county. In the Chicago suburbs, individual villages maintain their own societies, among them Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect, Palatine, and Wheeling, and these are the places to ask about a specific house or subdivision. Finally, genealogical societies such as the South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society and the Genealogy Society of Southern Illinois index cemeteries and newspapers that no statewide database covers. Before visiting any IRAD depository, call ahead: they are university archives with limited reading-room hours and will often pull county records for you in advance.

Additional Illinois History Resources

• Illinois State Archives Online Databases - Free statewide death, marriage, land sale, and military indexes
• Illinois Statewide Death Index - Pre-1916 county deaths and 1916-1972 state certificates by name
• Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, 1763-1900 - County marriage registers indexed with the Illinois State Genealogical Society
• Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales - Original land purchasers searchable by name or legal description
• Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) - Map of the seven university depositories that hold county records
• IDPH Division of Vital Records: Genealogy - Uncertified genealogical copies of births (75+ years) and deaths (20+ years, from 1916)
• Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections - More than 3 million free searchable newspaper pages from the University of Illinois
• Illinois State Historic Preservation Office - National Register nominations, surveys, and rehabilitation tax credits
• HARGIS - GIS portal to listed, eligible, and surveyed historic properties in Illinois
• Cook County Clerk Vital Records - Chicago and Cook County births, deaths, and marriages from 1872

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find an Illinois death that happened before 1916?

Search the free Illinois Statewide Death Index, pre-1916, on the Illinois State Archives website, which is compiled from county death registers and gives a citation to the original. The record itself must then come from the county clerk or from the IRAD depository holding that county's registers, because the state health department has nothing before 1916.

What Chicago records were lost in the 1871 fire?

The Great Chicago Fire of October 8-10, 1871 destroyed Cook County's records. County birth, death, and marriage records begin again in 1872, and the only pre-fire land records that survive are held privately by a title-guaranty company that admits researchers by appointment.

How can I learn who first bought my family's Illinois farm from the government?

Use the Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales database at the Illinois State Archives, which indexes more than 550,000 original purchasers and can be searched by name or by township, range, and section. Then confirm the patent on the BLM General Land Office Records site, which includes homestead, cash, and military warrant patents.

Which Illinois state censuses survive?

The 1855 and 1865 state censuses survive statewide and list heads of household; both are on FamilySearch and Ancestry. Earlier state censuses (1820, 1825, 1830, 1835, 1840, 1845) survive only for certain counties, and the 1810 and 1818 territorial counts are partial.