Illinois County Church and Cemetery Records

See Also Research In State Church & Cemetery Records - Church records rank among the most promising of genealogical records available. Indeed, for periods before the advent of civil registration of vital statistics (a very late development in many American states) , church records rank as the best available sources for information on specific vital events: birth, marriage, and death. They are also among the most under-used major records in American genealogy. Part of the reason lies in the number of denominations-there are hundreds of them. Identifying and locating the records of these various churches makes even professional genealogists hesitate......

Despite the early Catholic missionaries in Illinois, their church had almost totally disappeared from the state by the time of the American Revolution. Later migration of English-speaking Catholics reestablished the church in the state. In 1850 the largest religious denomination in Illinois was the Methodists. Baptists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Congregationalists followed. Episcopalians had organized in the state in 1835, the Disciples of Christ were in Illinois prior to 1830, and the Lutherans grew in numbers with the German and Scandinavian emigration of the 1840s.

In the spring of 1839 a group of five thousand Latter-day Saints, following their expulsion from Ohio and Missouri, were led into Illinois by Joseph Smith. At Nauvoo, originally called Venus and Commerce, they established their Mormon community. The population increased, prosperity increased, and opposition against the Mormons increased. This opposition and dissension within their church ended in the murder of Joseph Smith. In September of 1845 the Mormons were told they were being expelled from the state, an expulsion which led to their migration west.

The Bishop Hill colony of Henry County was founded by a group of Swedish immigrants. Fifteen hundred of them, led by Eric Janson, established a communal existence of a "Bible only" sect in 1846. The murder of Janson in 1853 led to the 1860 dissolution of this religious community. Most the Janonists eventually became Methodists. Some of the local genealogical societies have published regional church records in their respective quarterlies.

Original forms for the inventory Guide to Church Vital Statistics Records in Illinois; Historical Records Survey (Chicago, 1942) are at the Illinois State Archives. Included in the published inventory are: name of county and city/town; church name and address; denomination; date organized; date of lapse, if now defunct; description (by years, volumes, file boxes) of minute book, register book of baptisms, confirmations, marriages, members, and deaths, record book of Sunday school or other organization, and financial record; location and condition of records; general condition of all records; bibliographical information on any published or unpublished historical sketches of the church; and other information, particularly as to origins, history, and previous names of church. Files also include descriptions of records of orphanages, schools, and rest homes affiliated with the respective churches

• Illinois Church Books at Amazon.com
• Illinois Quaker Records: The data includes several vital records for members of these meetings. For those with Quaker ancestors in the Chicago area, this will be a helpful database.

Cemeteries - The Genealogical Society of Utah and the Daughters of the American Revolution have compiled cemetery records for the state of Illinois. Soldiers' Burial Places in State of Illinois for Wars 1774-1898 is available on thirty-one reels of microfilm from the FHL. Local genealogical societies may have information and possible printed records of cemeteries in their locale.

• Illinois Cemetery Books at Amazon.com
• Illinois Saving Graves - "Illinois Saving Graves is dedicated to providing leadership, education and advocacy in preserving and restoring endangered and forgotten cemeteries statewide"

Cemetery records and gravestone inscriptions are a rich source of information for family historians. Cemetery and other sources of information associated with death include: