Celebrate 150th Birthday and Independence Day 2016

Celebrate 150th Birthday and Independence Day 2016

Iroquois County Genealogical Society is parading this summer with the Iroquois County Historical Society.

To begin, we are celebrating the 150th birthday of the 1866 Iroquois County Courthouse, now a museum housing the Historical and Genealogical Societies of Iroquois County. Since 1975 it has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.





We started the parade season with our Birthday Cake float at the Milford Fun Days, June 25th, whose theme was "Under Construction." This is such a fitting theme for family history and genealogy, don't you think. Seems like there is always more to learn in our family history search.

But we found more parades with great themes for genealogy and family history.

Upcoming parades:

• Onarga, IL Independence Day Celebration, July 2, 11 a.m. Theme: "A Time to Remember"
• Watseka, IL Fourth of July Celebration, July 4, 11 a.m. Theme: "Pride in our Past, Faith in our Future"
• and more to follow in Iroquois County communities,
• ending with (we think) the Hoopeston (Illinois) Sweet Corn Festival parade in September.

Remembering items and people of our past

The Old Courthouse in Iroquois County, Illinois was built in 1866, which makes this year the 150th birthday of this historic building. Both the Iroquois County Genealogical Society and the Iroquois County Historical Society share this remarkable building which houses the Old Courthouse Museum.



The Historical Society collection includes items showing the history of Iroquois County, from the lives of its people, to the life of its land. Visit the Victorian Parlor, old Bedrooms, Veterinarian and Doctor Rooms, One Room School, Animal and Rock rooms. You can see the building's original Courtroom where county cases were argued for a century.

Located in the several old county vaults are our Genealogical Society treasures, original record books of the county, probates, estate records, land records, tax records, military and education records. If that's not enough for you, we also have newspaper microfilms, maps, atlases, cemetery records, church records, and the list goes on.

Next year, 2017 will be the 50th anniversary of the Historical Society and 2020 brings in the 50th anniversary of the Genealogical Society. Lots to celebrate around here.

Happy Independence Day, USA.

If you BUILD it, they will come.

Our Iroquois County Genealogical Society office is in a 2-room vault in the old county courthouse, so we sometimes keep the doors (steel-reinforced?) nearly shut to better control the temperature. There is a sign, "Come In. Doors are shut to conserve the heat (or cool)."

One small section of original record books

A few days ago, the doors parted and I heard a first-time visitor say, "Wow! I've found the treasure chest right here!" We really do have an impressive collection, and we still have the record books used over 100 years ago all around us.

Would you like more people to know about your Society, your Historical Museum or your Family History journey? So many people spend time online researching or learning. If you have activities or resources that can answer someone's research needs, it helps to get the word out. You have to BUILD that online presence.

I will be speaking on this topic at the annual meeting of the Iroquois County Historical Society at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 28, 2015. The meeting is just outside those vault doors in the old Iroquois County Courthouse, 103 West Cherry Street, Watseka, IL.

We are the Iroquois County Genealogical Society. We are on Facebook. We have a Rootsweb page. Here are three more ways we are BUILDing our online presence.

• We are BUILDing an online library catalog of the family histories and reference books we have. Maybe we have something that will help in your research. You may come to visit. It is the ICGS.Illinois LibraryThing. Free to BUILD and use.
• We are BUILDing interest in the activities and resources we have in Genealogy with this blog,  Searching Genealogy in ... Iroquois County, Illinois, and we include helpful hints on researching your family history. Free to BUILD and use.
• I am BUILDing a Pinterest board entitled Genealogy-Iroquois County-Illinois where I pin items of genealogical interest for Iroquois County. Free to BUILD and use.

These are definitely works in progress, but that just means we are still BUILDing our following, and we are working to get more people through those vault doors.

If you BUILD it, they will come.

ICGS.Illinois on The LibraryThing - National Library Week 2015

The week of April 12-17, 2015 was National Library Week, so I spent a few hours in the Iroquois County Genealogical Society library entering more books from our collection into our LibraryThing online catalog (https://www.librarything.com/profile/ICGS.Illinois). I first wrote about our library in this earlier post.

Many of these new additions include histories of counties in Illinois and booklets in honor of community centennial celebrations. There are many more bookshelves to go, so you can continue to return to our LibraryThing to see our new additions.

A few book tags on ICGS LibraryThing

If you don't have the direct link to our LibraryThing site, you can find the ICGS LibraryThing listings directly from the LibraryThing home page (http://www.librarything.com/ or https://www.librarything.com/).

On the LibraryThing home page, look at the top right corner of the page. You will see a Search site box to the far right of the brown bar. Click on the search magnifying glass, right below the word Help.

Now you can choose what you are searching, from Works (book titles) to Authors to Publishers. To search for our library, from the left column, click Members.

Enter ICGS.Illinois in the Search LibraryThing box and click the search magnifying glass. The results list will include ICGS.Illinois (Iroquois County Genealogical Society, Watseka, Illinois, USA).

Click on the link and you will see our Profile page. Read through our page to learn more about our Society. When I wrote this blog post, we had 880 books and family histories entered. You can also link to web page on Rootsweb, our Facebook page and this Searching Genealogy in...Iroquois County, Illinois blog. When you are ready to check out our books, click the Your library link next to Collections. You can browse through books or use the Search this library box to check for specific works.

There are many options available for viewing and searching collections on The LibraryThing. Explore and enjoy!

If you have any questions or comments, please click Comments below. Thanks for reading!

Great sites to learn about using the FREE FamilySearch.org!

We are three days into our free ONE-ON-ONE training sessions at Iroquois County Genealogical Society. (Still going through Saturday, March 14, 2015) I have had a great time. It's amazing how much you can learn just helping someone else learn. Love it and always will.

Sometimes you get a good start with those local resources found at your genealogical society archives or your state archives. Sometimes you get a good start by using online research sites. (Most of us probably do both of those things.)

One excellent online family research site is the FREE, and always will be FREE, FamilySearch.org site of the LDS church. You do not need to be a member of the church to take advantage of the "largest genealogy organization in the world."

All that, and they have some of the best online training resources ever. If you cannot make it to ICGS for our ONE-ON-ONE training sessions, you can find help in the following.

1 - FamilySearch.org Training Center

FamilySearch.org - always FREE. You can link to the Learning Center for "hundreds of online genealogy courses to help you discover your family history." Search for specific topics or choose a lesson by place, skill level, subject, format and subject language.

https://familysearch.org/learningcenter/home.html

Here's an example: Beginning training on Family Trees in FamilySearch.org

Free Training Videos

The View This Lesson link takes you to the FamilySearch Family Tree Curriculum page, where you can choose Levels One, Two or Three or training in the Android or iOS apps. Incredible resource, and this is only ONE topic. Some lessons have pdf handouts, videos and actual practice activities and worksheets. It's as though you are sitting in a classroom with a skilled instructor. You cannot help but learn.

http://broadcast.lds.org/elearning/fhd/Community/en/FamilyTreeCurriculum/index.html

2 - FamilySearch Research Wiki - new look, same great info

You may have been on the FamilySearch Wiki pages previously. The initial steps to get there have changed a bit, but the good stuff is still there.

From the FamilySearch home page, hover the cursor over SEARCH and choose Wiki.






This opens the new-look Family History Research Wiki. Remember, the concept of a "wiki" is collaboration, so on the right side of the window, you see links about how to add to the collaboration and creation of content pages. You are probably not there for that purpose right now, so don't click on those links.

You are here to learn more about searching your family history.

Family History Research Wiki

You need to use the clickable map or the search box to the left of the map to get to the research guides and information.

Just for fun, click North America on the map. There is the page you may be familiar with. Now choose United States, either by clicking the link or the next map. If that is not enough info to keep you happy and busy for a while, you already must know more than most of us.

We still have openings for participants in our free ONE-ON-ONE training sessions. Call and make an appointment. (815-432-3730)

We are here to help!

So many books, so little time!

In my first post on this blog, I wrote a brief summary of the types of records and resources we have in the ICGS archives. As I looked back at that post today, it was really brief. That's why this blog is so important. There is so much to tell.

Our "Genealogy Office" has a room that just fascinates me. If you ask Mary (she's in the office every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday), she will tell you that I always have been amazed in this room. It is full of BOOKS, hundreds of them! I want people to know about them.

A personal story I have to share: When I was at the University of Illinois, I used to go to the undergraduate library to study. Many days I would spend more time browsing the bookshelves than studying my books. After all, at that time, I was in part of the largest public university library in the country. Now, the Association of Research Libraries statistics for academic libraries in 2007-2008 shows Harvard University Library in first place with 16,832,952 volumes and University of Illinois in second place with 13,158,748. So many books, so little time!

For a few months, I have wanted to get a list of our books online. We don't circulate these books, but you should know what we have. There's no time like the present. Thanks to the constant updating of our computer records by Deb, time on Friday with Ginny and the computer, my past experience with databases and a little luck, we exported, then I imported 853 book titles into the online library site called LibraryThing. Our member name is ICGS.Illinois.

You can link directly to our Library at
 http://www.librarything.com/catalog/ICGS.Illinois.
This is definitely a work in progress, but book titles and most copyrights are listed. Tags (those words that help in searching and categorizing stuff) are in the entry, but not showing at this moment. Just one of those mysteries of technology I love so much. Authors should be showing, too, but aren't. Hmmm?

I guess I could have waited until it was tweaked to let you know this was available, but I just couldn't hold back. We have 853 books listed online!! As a former colleague used to say, "Whooo hoooo!"

Check out ICGS.Illinois on LibraryThing. Just saying, "So many books, so little time!"

Mark your 2015 calendars!

The ICGS Board has set dates for some of our 2015 activities. Expect 2015 to be a great year! Add these to your calendars now, so you don't miss a chance to participate, and check back for more details and reminders in future posts and in our newsletter, The Stalker.

Have you ever wanted to test run an online subscription site without having to sign up for it? Do you wish you knew more about how to get around a site that you are already paying for? Are those free online sites worth your time?

In a new event this year, we are going to try to answer those questions with you. The week of March 9-14, 2015, the Iroquois County Genealogical Society board and volunteers are hosting One-on-One training sessions to help you explore many online genealogy sites. The sessions are free, but registration is required. Sessions will be scheduled in 2-hour blocks of time. We are still working on the specifics, but some sites we are considering include Ancestry, Family Search,  Fold3, GenesReunited, Archives, Newspaper Archive, World Vital Records, Find My Past, Accessible Archives, and OGSA (Ostfriensen) Database.

Our 3rd Annual Cemetery Walk is scheduled for Sunday, September 13, 2015. We are planning to hold this event at the Flesher Cemetery, north of Crescent City, Iroquois County, Illinois. There will be much more to come on this interesting and enjoyable event. See this post about our 2014 Cemetery Walk.

Last October, we had a visit from Lin Strong, President of the Ostfriensen Genealogical Society of America.

Lin Strong (left) and ICGS President, Mary Buhr

At that time, we talked about having Lin come to Watseka to present a seminar. She will be here on Saturday, November 14, 2015. Part of the day will be spent in the ICGS library using the OGSA publications and other resources available here. Her topics are still being decided upon, but this promises to be a fabulous day of learning and fun.







IHSA (Illinois) Class 2A Watseka Regional Girls Basketball tourney runs from February 9-12. Watch for our ad in the printed program.

One last item to note: As you may know, you can purchase our publications from our web site using Paypal. When you visit our office, you now can use Paypal for in-person purchases, copies or donations. Just another reason to stop by to see us!

Family History in ICGS Archives - Come to Visit

October is Family History Month. It's a big deal!

Iroquois County Genealogical Society

Family History - that seems important. It is. And some would say, difficult. It doesn't have to be.

It doesn't have to be difficult, but it does take some effort. Like most tasks, the sooner you start, the easier the task. What does that mean?

It means you should get started today! Get a piece of paper and a writing tool. Here are a few ideas to get you started. Spend as much or as little time as you wish. You'll be coming back for more.

Start filling in your family tree.

To get started, you can use the standard forms posted at this link. This site is from the Brigham Young University Television 1997 series called Ancestry. Although this series was televised several years ago, these forms and research steps are still valid today. We also have these forms at the ICGS Archives.

The Pedigree Chart starts with you and works backward through your direct line ancestors, your parents, grandparents, and so on. (This is also called an Ancestral Chart.) Write down as much information as you can. If you have documents that support these facts, collect them in one place, make copies for your files. You'll thank yourself later when you start to ask how you know these facts. This chart shows your direct lines back in history, no siblings, no cousins.

The Family Group Record collects a husband, his wife and all their children, along with the dates and places of marriages, births and deaths. Start a sheet with yourself, your spouse and children, then complete a sheet with your parents and siblings, then to your grandparents and so on. Only one family on each sheet.

Need help with data? We have over 71,000 obituaries that may help you with dates and names. We have newspaper microfilms. We have marriage indexes. We have cemetery inventories. We have helpers who can answer questions. Stop in to see us.

But remember, it's not all just names and dates. Stories are important, too, so here is another suggestion.

Write a letter or reflect on a photo.

These are good activities to do with a youngster or on your own.

August 2014

Connect with a relative: cousin, aunt, uncle, or grandparent, maybe even a neighbor or friend of a parent or grandparent. It's important to talk to living relatives. Write a letter, make a phone call or record a conversation. Tell them who you are and how you are connected to them. Share a story about yourself or your shared ancestor. Ask them what they know about the family. If the answer is "I don't know anything," just share what you know or what you've heard. Tell a story about when you were younger. Sometimes this gets the memories going. You are looking for that "Oh, I remember when..." sentence.

About 1940

Find a photo, even if it is just one of a younger you or a house or a business. Write a short story about that photo, or tell a young person in your family about that photo and have them write your story. Maybe you can even record the conversation. It should get him or her thinking about questions to ask about your past. How old were you? What was happening in local or national history at the time of the photo? How did that influence the family? What did you do for fun at the time of the photo? Try to share how his or her life is the same or different than yours.






Write down your own history.

Don't forget, you are in your family tree. Write a timeline of things about you. It doesn't have to be a full biography, but write down what you can remember. Where have you lived, and when did you live there? Were you going to school or working at a job? What are those things that you wish you knew about your ancestors or siblings? Include those. What do you do for fun or family activities? Include information about your living family members and things you remember about those in your family who are gone. Include what makes you who you are. Think how much this will help those researching you in years to come.

Read a genealogy blog or listen to a podcast or watch a video.

If you are someone who spends time online, it's a good idea to read or listen to some of the experts in the field. (You are reading this blog, but I don't think of myself as an expert, just someone who loves to keep learning.) When I'm traveling, sometimes hours at a time, I listen to podcasts from my smartphone or iPad or tablet. At home, I listen to them from my computer.

Here are some blogs I can recommend. These are free to access.

Genealogy Gems Blog - by Lisa Louise Cooke, an author and presenter who shares tips and ideas on how to get the most out of your genealogy time.
Genealogy Insider - by Dianne Haddad and the Family Tree Magazine staff let you know the current news in genealogy.
FamilySearch Blog - by FamilySearch, a nonprofit family history organization with free access to online records.

Here are some podcasts I can recommend. These are free to access.

Genealogy Gems Podcasts - by Lisa Louise Cooke, includes research strategies and interviews with experts in genealogy.
Family History Genealogy Made Easy - by Lisa Louise Cooke, offering step-by-step help for beginners. (45 episodes)
Family Tree Magazine Podcasts - genealogy tools and tips.

Here are some YouTube channels I can recommend. These are free to access.

Genealogy Gems on YouTube - by Lisa Louise Cooke, more research strategies and training.
Ancestry.com on YouTube - Crista Cowan, the Barefoot Genealogist explains much about records on Ancestry.com and using Family Tree Maker software, but she also gives information on genealogy research.
FamilySearch on YouTube - great resources from FamilySearch.org to help you get started.

What's not to like about all of this? If you need help or encouragement, stop in to see us in the Iroquois County Genealogy Society Archives in the Old Courthouse Museum.

Happy Family History Month!