Can anyone describe which agencies/organizations in Champaign County have which vital records and for what time periods? This might include birth, death and marriage certificates. Also, possibly probate records. Thanks! Kevin

You can search for Records Holdings by county at this site http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/cgi-bin/archives/irad.s The people at the Urbana Free Library are great to help also. Access their site at: http://urbanafreelibrary.org//homepage.html Janet ----- Original Message ----- From: <KJMiller77@aol.com> To: <ILCHAMPA-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2001 12:11 AM Subject: [ILCHAMPA-L] VITAL RECORDS | Can anyone describe which agencies/organizations in Champaign County have | which vital records and for what time periods? | | This might include birth, death and marriage certificates. Also, possibly | probate records. | | Thanks! | | Kevin | | |

KJMiller77@aol.com writes: > Can anyone describe which agencies/organizations in Champaign County have > which vital records and for what time periods? > > This might include birth, death and marriage certificates. Also, possibly > probate records. I know from recent experience that the library (thru its archive division) and the local genealogical society have the probate packets to about 1920. After 1920 you need to contact the clerk of the court. I can't tell you the exact date or the number of the packet that's the cut off point, but that's approximately what it is. ( Champaign Co Circuit Clerk Linda Frank's Office Attn: PROBATE 102 E Main Urbana IL 61801 ) If you have a modern probate case or one near that date I suggest you call them and negotiate before writing, because I am not sure exactly what the laws are in Illinois about such cases. Sometimes they are reluctant to copy everything, anyway, & it gets expensive. However, try to get everything. In one 1920's case I found a lot of family information & names that the modern family had completely lost. There is also film in the LDS library of the probate packet index. I don't have the film number handy but it's useful to get this to see if your subjects are even present; I think it covers cases from early - roughly 1930. It seems complete, in the sense that there are no surprise unindexed packets. There are also LDS films of the early packets, early - to about 1895. There is also film of a will book (not helpful in my case so didn't look at it deeply -- think the index was incomplete). I think there are probably more probate cases than these, but I don't know where they are. Probably in the circuit court order books or journals or whatever exists. I don't know enough about the process in Illinois. The packets seem to be very complex cases that needed a lot of court supervision or lasted a long time (at least in my family :^). There have to be a lot of much simpler cases. Perhaps also the rules about transferring land titles were more lax at this time than now. Someone who knows the law from this era or with experience researching this, I would love to talk to you in the next few months. Other records -- I believe that the law required recording birth, death records from about 1878, but there are many missing entries from the 19th century. I think the organization of these must have been up to the local doctors for several decades. Both the library & the count clerk can provide you copies of these, if they have them. Both also have the marriage records going back very early. However, I know there are some gaps in their records, and in a few cases the gaps are puzzling. For example, I have certified attestations of some marriage records, done by the county clerk, in Civil War pension files. But those marriage records themselves aren't findable today in the county records. IRAD has some tax and court records; I don't know how or what relationship they have with the Urbana library archive division; I think they may have some of the same records. Again, an area I am just learning about, but would like to understand better in the next few months... anyone?