Genealogy in the University Library's Collection

As one of the great research libraries in North America, the University of Illinois Library owns many resources that are useful for researchers of genealogy and local history. These resources are scattered throughout our vast collections, rather than collocated in a single section. This guide is intended to provide some insight into finding genealogical material within the UIUC Library. Please note that this is intended only as a starting point; it is in no way comprehensive.

Many of the citations listed for the individual Illinois county sections were drawn from the Illinois County Bibliography, a listing compiled in 1985 by Connie Fairchild of the Library's reference department. This listing is located in the Reference Library (200 Library). Only a sampling for each county is presented on this website. For more resources on each county, please consult this guide (shelved near the call number 016.9773), or for material published after 1985, the Library's online catalog.

Over the next several weeks, we will be adding content to this site, so please check back again soon for more resources.

Where to Start

Since researching genealogy can be a daunting task, we have grouped our resources in the following categories. If at any point you have any questions about identifying or using the Library's collections, feel free to ask a librarian for help.

Illinois Resources
There is a separate page for each Illinois county, listing a sampling of resources available in the UIUC Library (with call numbers). For current location of materials, please consult the online catalog. The section on the University of Illinois includes resources with information about people who worked for or attended the University.

United States Resources
This section presents examples of resources available at UIUC for the other forty-nine states. You may be surprised by our holdings for distant regions. We are the beneficiaries of generations of canny acquisitions librarians at UIUC.

Foreign Resources
Though less extensive than our U.S. holdings, the UIUC Library has a vast collection of resources for family and local history in other parts of the world, particularly Western Europe.

Web Resources
Few subjects are as extensively represented on the World Wide Web as genealogy, and there are excellent sites that categories the resources available on the web. Here we list web-based databases that are available by subscription to individuals with UIUC net IDs. Without a UIUC net ID, you can still use these databases at any public computer in the UIUC Library.