In a message dated 1/28/2003 4:50:22 PM Central Standard Time, [email protected] writes: > Can someone tell me if there is a way to check births in 1871 in > Wayne Co. without going to the courthouse? Pat -- As you already know from Sandy's response, the courthouse burned in 1886, so birth, death, and marriage records prior to that time are hard to come by. However, if you're willing to do a little digging, there are some alternatives to private family records. For me, the most useful source for this type of data in the pre-1886 period has been newspapers. Early issues of various Wayne County periodicals are preserved on microfilm and are available both at the library in Fairfield and in the archives of the Illinois State Historical Society in Springfield. It takes some careful searching -- old newspapers are not always easy to scan -- but I have successfully documented a number of births, deaths, and marriages from this source. As an alternative to searching the microfilm copies, you can use any of several published books which contain abstracts of vital statistics therefrom (again, the Fairfield library has these). These books are indexed, which makes the task much easier. My experience, however, is that the books are far from being complete or exhaustive, and the serious researcher is better off going directly to the primary source. Hope this helps. Guy I. Colby IV Irving, TX