National Archives at Chicago

United States Illinois  Cook  Archives and Libraries 

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Contact Information
E-mail: [mailto:chicago.archives@nara.gov chicago.archives@nara.gov]

Address:


 * Regional Archives
 * 7358 South Pulaski Road
 * Chicago, IL 60629-5898

Telephone: 773-948-9001 Fax: 773-948-9050

Hours and holidays:


 * Monday - Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
 * Second Saturday of the month (View the Dates) 8:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.
 * Closed Sundays and Federal holidays

Map, directions, and public transportation:


 * For a map, click here.
 * By car: The facility is about 5 miles south of the Pulaski Road exit on the Stevenson Expressway (I-55), 5 miles west of the 79th Street exit on the Dan Ryan Expressway (I-94), and 7 miles north of the Cicero Avenue exit on the Tri-State Tollway (I-294).
 * Public transportation: Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus 53A (the South Pulaski Road route) stops at South Pulaski Road and West 75th Street. Passengers can transfer from it to other buses, subways, and commuter trains serving the Chicago area.

Internet sites and databases:


 * Great Lakes Region (Chicago) Internet site list of states and records covered, services, genealogy and historical research, federal and Indian censuses, military, passenger arrivals, naturalization, court records, WWII draft registration, soldier home case files, FAQs, finding aids, and new accessions.
 * Genealogy microfilm holdings, textual records, District Court naturalization records.
 * Access to Archival Databases (AAD) a search engine into some of NARA's holdings of electronic records. Search by person, geographic areas, organizations, or dates.
 * Archival Research Catalog (ARC) the online catalog of over 63% of NARA's nationwide holdings. Searches by keywords, by location, organization, person, or topics, and for digitized images.
 * Archives Library Information Center (ALIC) American history and government, archival administration, information management, and government documents for archivists, librarians, and the public.
 * The United States Vessel Enrollments for the Great Lakes region. The transcriptions are from a project that involved an attempt to transcribe all steamboat enrollments for Great Lakes ports prior to 1861, all vessels for Detroit and Cleveland up to 1861, and Buffalo up to 1841 are included in the file. The set includes 5741 enrolments in which just under 2000 individual vessels are named, over 6000 people were identified.

Collection Description
Serves Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Includes federal censuses, Indian censuses for Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin; Indian school records, passenger arrival lists, U.S. District and Circuit Courts in Illinois 1819-1982, Indiana 1819-1961, Michigan 1815-1961, Minnesota 1890-1957, Ohio 1803-1961, Wisconsin 1839-1961; bankruptcies, criminal cases, a multi-state naturalization index 1840-1950, pre-World War I military service, pension and bounty land warrnat records, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Corp of Engineers, General Land Office applications and registers, Internal Revenue Service, African American histories, fugitive slaves, and Great Lakes and inland waterways.

Tips
Over 68% of the Regional Archives' records are currently described in ARC at the series level. If you do not find the records you are seeking, please contact the Northeast Region staff.

Guides

 * Archival Holdings Guide at NARA's Greate Lakes Region (Chicago) record group level descriptions of archival holdings including agency administrative history.
 * Federal Records Guide Search NARA's holdings of federal records at a very high level, to identify which record groups may have material about your research topics. Alphabetical index to the Federal Records Guide. Record Groups by topic clusters in the Federal Records Guide.
 * Bankruptcy and Court Records Research for the National Archives Great Lakes Region.
 * Loretto Dennis Szucs, and Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, The Archives: A Guide to the National Archives Field Branches (Salt Lake City: Ancestry, 1988), 17-19. WorldCat entry. Describes each field branch collection, microfilms, services and activities. Each of 150 record groups of the archives is also described.

Alternate Repositories
If you cannot visit or find a source at the , a similar source may be available at one of the following.

Overlapping Collections


 * National Archives I, Washington DC, census, pre-WWI military service &amp; pensions, passenger lists, naturalizations, passports, federal bounty land, homesteads, bankruptcy, ethnic sources, prisons, and federal employees.
 * National Archives II, College Park, MD, Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, and Treasury all after 1900.
 * Federal Records Center, Dayton, OH, 750,000 cartons of records transferred for temporary storage from Federal agencies located in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota.
 * Federal Records Center Kingsridge, OH, serves the Memphis IRS Service Center and miscellaneous records from all other IRS Service Centers.
 * Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, Ann Arbor, MI, administration biographies and papers, institutional holdings.

Similar Collections


 * National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), St. Louis, MO, military and civil services personnel records. For servicemen and servicewomen discharged from 1912 to 1953.
 * Family History Library, Salt Lake City, 450 computers, 3,400 databases, 3.1 million microforms, 4,500 periodicals, 310,000 books of worldwide family and local histories, civil, church, immigration, ethnic, military, Mormon records.
 * Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana, premier periodical collection, including Illinois genealogies, local histories, databases, military, censuses, directories, and passenger lists.

Neighboring Collections


 * Cook County Clerk births, marriages, and deaths online
 * Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court recent probates, civil, criminal records.
 * Cook County Recorder of Deeds land records, military discharge DD-214s.
 * Cook County Medical Examiner suspicious or unusual deaths.
 * U.S. District Court Northern District of Illinois recent civil and criminal court records.
 * Arlington Heights Memorial Library a huge collection, with printed genealogies, manuscripts, periodicals, newspapers, special aids, surname folders—a great overall genealogy collection.
 * Asher Library, Chicago, Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies 500,000 books, and films.
 * Chicago History Museum 20 million manuscripts, letters, certificates, diaries, genealogy charts, log books, journals, memoirs, minutes, muster rolls, scrapbooks, sermons, speeches, and telegrams.
 * Chicago Public Library reference books, how-to-guides, histories, biographies.
 * Chicago Title Trust  for a fee they search property records prior to the Chicago fire.
 * Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, a large repository with genealogies, local histories, censuses, military, land, indexes, vital records, court, and tax records mostly from the Mississippi Valley, eastern seaboard, Canada, and the British Isles.
 * Pritzker Military Museum and Library, Chicago, 45,000 military history books, unit histories, photos, uniforms, equipment, insignia, and ships of many world militaries. They help genealogists.
 * Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago Archives parish records, priest biographies, sacramental, school, or orphanage records.
 * South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society, Hazel Crest, a very good collection with local histories, genealogies, naturalizations, Pullman Car Works personnel, obituaries, church histories.
 * University of Chicago Library plentiful historical records, including Durrett Collection  of historical Kentucky and Ohio River Valley manuscripts of early people in the Ohio Valley.
 * University of Illinois at Chicago, biography, periodicals, newspapers, oral history, ethnic studies.
 * Repositories in surrounding counties: DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Will in IL, and Lake, IN.
 * Illinois State Archives, Springfield, county/state records, pre-Chicago fire sources, indexed vital records, early land grants, military records, all fed/state censuses, surname card index.
 * Illinois State Library, Springfield, state/federal records, federal censuses to 1920, plat books, IL county histories, Sanborn fire insurance maps, Rev. War pensions and bounty land warrants.
 * Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield, county histories with index; best newspapers collection in IL, DAR and State Genealogical Society records, and manuscript family papers.
 * Illinois State Genealogical Society, Springfield, research guidance, teaching via webinars and the ISGS blog for free, death certificates 1916-1947 for a fee. No research requests.
 * Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD), Springfield, HQ of 7 regional archives of local Illinois county/town records: birth, marriage, death, land, tax, voting reg., probate, naturalization, civil criminal court, coroner, poorhouse. For Cook County see IRAD-Northeastern Illinois University.
 * Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield, genealogy, plat maps, atlases, oral and county history, cemeteries, census, vital records, naturalizations in many counties.
 * John A. Logan College Library, Carterville, this library is a focal point of Southern Illinois genealogy. Their collection is huge.
 * Lincoln Library, Springfield, indexed obituaries, city directories, the Sangamon Valley Collection  has photos, yearbooks, histories, and maps for studying Sangamon and surrounding counties.
 * Peoria Public Library enjoys a large genealogy and local history department, including many indexes, DAR files, and basic genealogy resources for the plains states.
 * Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Lovejoy Library best library in southern IL with a large genealogical collection of newspapers, biographies, county histories, family folders, and maps.
 * Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Rock Island, IL, Swedish church records, census, passenger lists, lodges, newspapers, directories.
 * University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Main Library one of the best book collections in America, including county histories, and farmers registers. Think of it as another archives for Illinois.
 * Urbana Free Library their strength is Champaign County history, but they have good basic genealogy for the entire United States including printed genealogies, manuscripts, family folders.
 * Repositories in other surrounding states: Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin:
 * Indiana State Library, Indianapolis, printed county histories, indexes, city directories, newspapers; microfilm vital, deed, probate, court, church, cemetery, census mortality index.
 * Detroit Public Library, MI, original, printed, microfilm historic and genealogical material.
 * Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, photos, maps, newspapers, railroads, Canadian history, fur trade, Scandinavians, American Indians, diaries, letters, and scrapbooks.
 * Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, 125,000 books, 40,000 newspaper microfilms, Northwest Territory, local and state government records, railroad photos, OH death index 1912-1937.
 * Polish Genealogical Society of America, Milwaukee, WI, 60,000 books on Polish history, art, culture, reference.
 * Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, pre-1907 vital records, federal and early state censuses and indexes, passenger arrivals, newspapers, land, probate, court, taxes, county and town records.