Illinois State Facts & Information
Wills, administrations, and probate matters are at the office of the circuit court. Deeds, mortgages, and leases are the responsibility of the recorder of deeds. In mailing requests to any Illinois county office, use the title of the appropriate county officer and “County Courthouse,” with the address listed in the county pages linked below.
For some counties there are two years for “Date Formed.” The first is the year the county was created. The second is the year it was fully organized if it differs from the creation year. Under the heading “Parent County/ies,” the name/s listed may be the county or counties from which the respective county was formed, or it may be the name by which the county was formerly known. “Unorganized” denotes that some formerly non-county area was included. A county name in parentheses is the county to which the unorganized land may have been attached at that time. Counties listed with an asterisk (*) are those in which you may also find records for the respective county since it may have been “attached” to that county for some period of time.
The earliest court records for Illinois counties created after 1818 are invariably records of the circuit court. Chancery, civil, and criminal cases are usually filed together at first.” For counties created during the territorial period, the following gives the type of their earliest court: St. Clair: Court of the District of Cahokia; Randolph: French Provincial Council; Madison, Gallatin, and Johnson: court of common pleas; Edwards, White, Jackson, Pope, Monroe, Crawford, and Bond: county court; Franklin, Union and Washington: justices' court. Jackson, Cook and Franklin counties lost early court records in fires. Choose from the counties below to view the county information.
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List of Illinois Counties
Select a county from the table below to to view more information on genealogical information & records pertaining to each county.
Information on each county page will list the date for courthouse records is the earliest record known to exist in that county. It does not indicate that there are numerous records for that year and certainly does not indicate that all such events that year were actually registered. Deed records usually coincide with the beginning of a county, so earlier dates in the land sales column usually indicate transcribed records from a parent county, or land patent records that contain information on original land sales from the public domain.
Illinois State History
The official state website is located at http://www.illinois.gov.
Illinois, state in the north central United States, in the heart of the Midwest. Illinois was little more than a vast wilderness 200 years ago. Since entering the Union on December 3, 1818, as the 21st state, the economy of Illinois has expanded until today Illinois is one of the most productive agricultural and industrial states in the Union, and its economic influence now extends far beyond the Midwest.
Flanked by the Mississippi River on the west and by a short stretch of Lake Michigan on the northeast, the state is largely an area of flat or gently rolling plains that were once covered by tall luxuriant prairie grasses. The grasslands have long since been cleared for raising crops, but the state still retains its nickname, the Prairie State. Much of the land is tidily laid out in the checkerboard pattern so typical of the Midwest. Large prosperous farms specialize in raising grain and livestock on the rich prairie soils. Tall grain elevators, church spires, and an occasional grove of trees are the most conspicuous landmarks; and machine sheds, fields of corn and soybeans, and hogs in feedlots are the most common sights across the farmlands.
Rural Illinois does not lack physical and agricultural diversity. It has hill lands and a national forest in the south, cotton fields on the fertile alluvial lands in the extreme south, scenic bluffs along the Mississippi, and hillside dairy farms in the northwest.
In addition, rural Illinois is far from being isolated from urban Illinois. The state is covered by a dense network of railroads, highways, waterways, and air routes, most of which converge on the great metropolis of Chicago. The third largest city in the United States, Chicago dominates the industrial, financial, and social life of the state. In some ways, Chicago stands apart from the rest of the state. To many Chicagoans, Illinois consists of two sections: Chicago and “downstate.” Other Illinois cities, such as Peoria, Rockford, and Decatur, tend to be overshadowed by Chicago. Nevertheless, these smaller communities manage to retain their distinctive characteristics. Perhaps the most famous is the state capital, Springfield, which President Abraham Lincoln often referred to as his home. The national fame of Springfield, New Salem, and other places in Illinois that are associated with Lincoln are reflected in the official state slogan, Land of Lincoln.
The state is named for the Illinois, or Illini, a confederation of Native Americans of various tribes who inhabited Illinois and other sections of the Midwest at the time the first French explorers entered the region. The name Illinois is said to have been a French version of the Illini word for themselves, “Illiniwek.” The Official State website is at http://www.illinois.gov/
When Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette arrived in Illinois country in 1673, they found a settler's paradise: fertile soil, sweeping prairies, forests, and water. A traversable network of rivers, easy low-land portages, and the accessibility of Lake Michigan combined to make the future state of Illinois easy to explore. In 1680 Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle, with a vision of the economic promise of the area, erected Fort Crevecoeur at the site of Peoria. Henri de Tonti, an Italian, accompanied La Salle. Two years later the two explorers built Fort St. Louis. By 1691, Tonti, who had taken over the settlement when La Salle left in 1685, moved Fort Louis eighty miles downstream. The new fort, known as Fort Pimitoui, included several buildings, Father Marquette's mission, and a village of fur traders' European-native families. Cahokia was settled by Seminarian priests in 1699, Kaskaskia by Jesuits four years later. Settlement followed at Fort de Chartres, Prairie du Rocher, St. Phillipe, and St. Genevieve.
In 1717 Illinois country was placed under the French government of Louisiana. France had ceded all possessions east of the Mississippi in 1763, although the British did not take possession, at Fort de Chartres, until two years later. From 1778-82 the present state of Illinois was a territory of Virginia and known as the county of Illinois. The American Revolution and the Treaty of Paris in 1783 extended the American boundary to the Mississippi, thus making the present Illinois part of the United States.
The establishment of the Northwest Territory in 1787 included Illinois land, but the area became part of the Indiana Territory in 1800. Nine years later the Illinois Territory was established, followed by statehood in 1818.
By 1800 the population of 2,000 included Americans from Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, Tennessee, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New England. In the spring of 1817 a group of English immigrants settled in Edwards County. Rhode Island farmers established a colony at Delavan, Tazewell County, in 1837. The states served as a conduit for the Underground Railroad before the Civil War.
Migration from Illinois was also significant and should not be overlooked by the genealogist. Kansas and Nebraska were the eventual homes of many Illinois settlers. The gold rush to California, the wagon trains of the Oregon Trail, and the open prairies of Iowa all tempted the populace of Illinois to venture further west.
When Europeans arrived in the Illinois country, the Illinewek or Illinois Indians were being dominated by the Iroquois of New York and were anxious to have the protection of a nearby fort or mission. In the Illinois valley region, they had once been the largest tribe, a loosely organized alliance of the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Tamroa, Peoria, Michigamea, and Moingwena bands. Warfare and disease took their tolls, and by 1832 there were slightly more than two hundred of the tribe left in Illinois. The last land cession treaty in that year resulted in those few Native Americans being transferred to a Kansas reservation.
Included in the Illinois State Archives are the following: in Record Group 103.62, "Executive Section, Executive File," papers ca. 1824-32 concerning native Americans in Illinois (copies of treaties and speeches made by native Americans and government representatives at peace conferences, and depositions of Illinois citizens taken by state agents dealing with Indian depredations); and in Record Group 100, "Records of the Illinois Territory," there is material pertaining to speeches of, trade with, and treaties with Indians, and mention of the Cherokee, Delaware, Fox, Kickapoo, Osage, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Shawnee tribes.
Illinois has been the home of immigrants from many countries. Settlement patterns within the state frequently varied by nationality.
Many German immigrants came to Illinois as affluent farmers, professionals, and artisans and were able to continue as such in America. There were also those who came with little or no money to spare. Immigrants came via the Great Lakes to Chicago. Working in the industries of the city, they could make good wages to buy their "American" farm. Unfortunately, living costs were high, savings grew slowly, and land values rose rapidly. The "farmer" often became a city dweller. One third of the foreign-born population in Illinois in 1850 was German. Religious, political, and economic factors had caused the massive migration. Cheap and fertile land in the Mississippi Valley brought them westward. Some of the earliest German settlements were in Dutch Hollow and Darmstadt, St. Clair County.
The Irish immigrant may have stayed in the cities, employed as a day laborer or factory worker. They moved from place to place within the state, but by 1860 the nucleus of the Irish immigrant community was in Chicago. Many Irish worked on the construction of the Illinois and Michigan canal system. When this project was temporarily abandoned in the early 1840s, large numbers of Irish became farmers.
There was considerable immigration from England, some of it prompted by the London Roman Catholic Emigration Society and the Mormon missionaries sent from Nauvoo by Joseph Smith. Kane County had a considerable Welsh population, and the lead mines brought the Cornish. In 1834 the Scottish began migrating to Illinois, their numbers in 1850 totalling 4,660.
The first Norwegian settlement in the Midwest was founded by a group from New York in 1834 along the Fox River near Ottawa. Five-hundred Swedes established themselves at Bishop Hill in Henry County, and the Mormons settled at Nauvoo.
Although there were scattered French-Canadians in Illinois country very early, there were few immigrants from France before 1830. Metamora in Woodford County was the first important French section, established in 1831, followed by several other French settlements. Bourbonnais, in Kankakee County, with a population of 1,719 in 1850, was a French-Canadian village that maintained Canadian customs for many years.
Colonies of religiously-exiled Portuguese immigrants were located at Springfield and Jacksonville in 1849. There was a cluster of Bavarian Jews in Chicago. Although few Swiss immigrated to Illinois, there were settlements in St. Clair County, in Galena, and in Madison County-the most important center of Swiss population in Illinois.
Discontinued & Extinct Illinois Counties
This section provides an list of Illinois counties that no longer exist. They were established by the state, provincial, or territorial government. Most of these counties were created and disbanded in the 19th century; county boundaries have changed little since 1900 in the vast majority of states.
- Dane County: Formed in 1839 from Montgomery, Sangamon and Shelby Counties, renamed in 1840 to Christian County
- Hignland County: Formed in 1847 from Adams and Marquette Counties, abolished in 1848
- Marquette County: Formed in 1843 from Adams County, abolished in 1847
- Wayne County: Formed in 1803 from Knox and St. Clair Counties, abolished in 1847
Illinois Counties with Burned Courthouses
The destruction of courthouses greatly affects genealogists in every way. No only are these historic structures torn from our lives, so are the records they housed: marriage, wills, probate, land records, and others. Once destroyed they are lost forever. Even if they have been placed on mircofilm, computers and film burn too. The most heartbreaking side of this is the fact that many of our courthouses are destroyed at the hands of arsonist. However, not all records were lost.
Below is a list of Illinois Counties and the years the Courthouses were subjected to a disaster. This does NOT mean that ALL RECORDS were lost. Often, folks took their documents again in for recording after a disaster and later deeds will contain long chains of title, etc.
- Adams County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire on December 9, 1835. Second courthouse was destroyed by fire January 9, 1875. Third Courthouse was damaged beyond repair by a tornado that roared thru Quincy April 12, 1945.
- Brown County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire on March 8, 1939
- Clark County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire on December 30, 1902
- Cook County - Total record loss (1831–1871) due to a Fire on October 9, 1871
- Crawford County - Fire on March 28, 1999. Some records lost or damaged.
- Cumberland County - Total record loss (1843–1885) due to a Fire on November 5, 1885
- Franklin County - Most records lost (1818–1843) due to a fire on November 18, 1843
- Hardin County - Most records lost (1839–1884) due to a fire on May 19, 1884
- Iroquois County - Some records lost or damaged (18 years) due to a Fire on October 16, 1866
- Jackson County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire on June 10, 1843
- Kane County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire in 1843. Volumes saved; 5,000 court files burned in a Fire on March 13, 1890
- Logan County - Total record loss (1839–1857) due to a Fire on April 15, 1857
- McLean County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire on June 19, 1900
- Morgan County - Most records lost (1823–1827) due to a Fire on December 6, 1827
- Moultrie County - Most records lost (1843–1864) due to a Fire on November 25, 1864
- Pike County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire in 1831
- Pulaski County - Most records lost in a Fire on November 22, 1879. Some records damaged by water in a 1837 Flood.
- Shelby County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire on November 17, 1894
- Vermilion County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire on 1872
- Wabash County - Most records lost (1824–1857) due to a Fire on April 5, 1857
- Wayne County - Total record loss (1819–1886) due to a fire on November 17, 1886
- Williamson County - Some records lost or damaged in a fire on May 30, 1875
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