Hi Cris, You may not be doing anything wrong! They simply are not there. I tried several serarches with no hits as well. IL became a state in about 1817 and began recording marriages in 1825. But it was not until 1875 that they became somewhat regluarly recorded and and not until 1916 that recording was mandatory. A lot of marriages simply did not get recorded for a variety of reasons. I had great-great grandparents who married in 1858 but their marriage in 1858 was not recorded. Until 1879! So the registration showed the marriage as occuring in 1879. The likely explanation I was given is that the Justice of the Peace failed to record it. Maybe later, after he died, someone in the family decided to haul his records down to the courthouse. THEN they got recorded. I was told this was not an uncommon scenario. Bill in Denver