IL marriage records, part 2

As mentioned in the previous post, I focused on Lake County, IL for my NGS Home Study Course assignment on marriage records. The earliest available marriage records for Lake County held by IRAD begin in 1839, the same year the county was created. In these early years of recorded county history, the marriage records were hand-written returns stating that a license was issued and a return was filed by either a church official or the J.P. No information other than the names of the couple, the attestor, the J.P./church official, and the clerk and the dates of the license and of the event were given. By 1849, a register-like form began to be used stating roughly the same information; names of couple, when the license was issued, the date of the marriage, and who married them. The first actual marriage license application in the collection is from 1893. The application is much more in-depth showing the names of the couple, where they reside, their ages, whether they are related, whether they are both single, reasons why they should not be married, signature of the applicant, and, where necessary, an affadavit from the parent/guardian in the event of an underage bride or groom. The records beginning in 1901 do not include the application. It is currently unknown if these records ever existed or if the questionnaire was purposely eliminated. In any event, beginning in 1901 we find the license and affadavit attached and signed by the groom, clerk, minister/official, and the parent/guardian in the event of an underaged bride or groom. From 1905-1918 (the most recent holdings at the facility) the form has been changed again, this time bringing back the questionnaire-style application, the affadavit (though by this time, seldomly used), and a copy of the license itself. From the first questionnaire format to the more recent one, the questions themselves did not change much. The only difference was in the extent to which the application investigated earlier marriages. Specifically, the questionnaire asked about divorces and adultery which the earlier format did not explore.

Several volumes of the Lake County marriage record holdings available for viewing on microfilm from the IRAD depository at NIU are missing. It was unknown whether these volumes are also missing at the Lake County courthouse in Waukegan. There was a fire in Waukegan in 1875 which touched some government buildings, but from what I've been able find out about it online, it doesn't sound like the county's records were lost. Another important factoid about the collection is that IRAD does have an index to these records, searchable by date and thereafter by the first initial of the surname. The index however, covers years up to 1918 whereas the actual film of the records themselves only goes to 1915 so you will have to rely upon the County Clerk in Waukegan for marriage records between 1918 and 1962. Thereafter, you can order copies from the Illinois Department of Public Health, Vital Records Div. in Springfield.

So now that I have my run-down of availability, I can get this baby typed up and emailed into NGS. As soon as that's done, I will have finished CD 1 and will be ready for CD 2. I don't know yet what will be covered next, but since CD 1 covered all of the basic stuff, I'm guessing CD 2 should have some more "meat" to get into. I can't wait!!!

Lesson Learned

Just because the employee on the phone tells you that the marriage records are open, that doesn't always mean that you can view the actual records.

After my failure to get to the Lake County, IL court house last week (thanks to the most abysmal parking situation at a court house that I've seen to date) and the subsequent knowledge that the records are not open to the public anyway, I decided to return to that marriage survey assignment from Lesson 6 of the NGS home course today with a trip to neighboring McHenry County. The County Clerk's office has the vital records, with marriages back to 1837, housed in the county administration building in Woodstock, IL. The marriage records are not on microfilm and when I called yesterday, I was told that they are open records. When I arrived at the office this morning however, I was greeted by an employee who made that confused face when I said I was there to view the records. Once I explained that I was doing a survey on how the records changed over time, what years may be missing, etc. she brought me a ledger which she said covered the earliest years. In a way, it did but it was clearly not what I needed. She brought me the index to marriages in the county between 1837-1895. The index was alphabetized by surname of the groom and merely stated which book and page the actual record (whether it was a return or a certificate, the employee wouldn't tell me) was located. So I requested what appeared to be the earliest ledger for the actual records to which I was told those are not open. She asked her "boss" about whether she could show me the records but the answer was no. So there ended my second attempt to view marriage records for this assignment and the third county to shoot me down.

Lake County does not have open marriage records, McHenry County does not have open marriage records, and according to the Cook County Clerk's satellite office in Rolling Meadows, the records for Cook County aren't accessible either. I'm starting to think I may have to go over the border into Wisconsin to get this assignment done. I have one more county in IL that is under an hour away from me that I could call, Will County, but if they tell me the same thing then I'm going to have to start looking at alternatives to get this assingment done. I could possibly just order film from the FHL and do it that way. I was really hoping to be able to get in there and at least see the ledgers or possibly pages like in Indiana. This past fall, I was able to toil away like a kid in a candy store in courthouses in Randolph and Jay counties in Indiana and Darke county Ohio, as well as the archives building in Xenia, Greene County, Ohio. That's four counties of records in one week all with ledgers and pages to view! It was great! Oh well, guess those days are gone and I'm looking at strike 3.

Final assignment for NGS HSC CD 1: Vital Records

Sounds pretty self-explanatory, right? I figured the assignment would be to dig out a vital record from your collection and then go over its contents. Yikes, was I wrong!

The final topic of the NGS Home Study Course is Vital Records and the highlights of the lesson are brought to life with the inclusion of three, count them, 3 assignments. The first is another great example of "Why didn't I think of that?" You dig out your first four-generation pedigree chart again and go through each ancestor with your copy of Ancestry's Redbook (boy am I glad I was able to pick this one up on ebay over the summer!) and your computer, writing down where records recording each person's vitals (birth, marriage, and death) can be found. Once again, it's not just a lesson is how to handle the records, it's also a lesson for me in organization and keeping master lists of important info together. I'm one of those people that has little scraps of paper everywhere and then when I need the info I've written down, I can't find it. So this was a really great exercise.

The second assignment for this lesson is to actually order a new record. I was a "hobbyist" genealogist for about 10 years or so before I started to actually think more seriously about it as a profession, so between my Mom and I, we've managed to collect almost every vital that we could handle. However, we have left some select few that were either too pricey (the ones that are $20/$25 and up) or those where we needed to research things a little more before chancing a wrong date and/or location and getting one of those dreaded "no results found" certificates. So now I'm kindof in a quandry about what to order. I have a few options though which I'll probably relay in the next post. In any case, the purpose of the exercise is to familiarize yourself with the request letter and/or the forms required by the County Clerk/state Health Dept, etc.

The final assignment for this lesson is a "Marriage Records Survey". I'm really excited about this one. The assignment requires that you go to a nearby County Clerk's office, or some other repository near you that maintains marriage records, and record the information found; whether they have the marriage records in those big ledgers, or even loose pages, while others (like Chicago, which would have been my first choice), have microfilmed the info to save space. Some things to look for while working on the inventory include: the earliest record, type of records (ie, license, bond, application, register, etc.), any marriage record loss, records for any period that may be held "off-site", and info provided on the records. It is also suggested that we look at records from the earliest time to the more recent and compare the available information, trying to figure out when the changes may have taken place. This is also an assignment that suggests you turn in examples of what you find along with your inventory and subsequent report, along with their correct citations of course.

This third assignment is going to be a large one, and I haven't chosen a repository yet. I don't think I'm going to be going to Cook County for this, as mentioned above, they have microfilmed their records and public access tends to be restrictive and I'm not sure whether they would allow me to just pull random film (or have the staff pull random film for me), so I'll probably need to stick to one of the counties closer to home. I'll also need to find a day where I'll have a little extra time to do this. I'll definitely post about the experience though, it should be an interesting day. I love when I'm able to get back into a courthouse and see those old pages!