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.

Iroquois County Genealogy Society Archives - Getting Started

What can you expect if you visit The Iroquois County Genealogical Society Archives in the Iroquois County Museum, the old Iroquois County Courthouse in Watseka, Illinois? Here is a brief overview of our collections.

The Society’s collections include over 70,000 obituaries from area newspapers of the 1800’s to present day, inventories of every cemetery in Iroquois County and coroners' files and burial permits. 

Do you need a census replacement for the 1890 U.S. census? Don't we all? We have tax records from the 1860’s to the 1950’s and books of early land and property records. We have microfilm rolls of Probate and Estate records and court cases of Iroquois County, Illinois.

Marriage applications, family histories, maps, atlases, plat books, biographical indexes and newspaper clippings of business and social events can be found here. Baptism, marriage and death records from French and German churches in our collections have been translated.

We have a collection of German OSB books from towns of Ostfriesland, Germany, and Iroquois County area one-room school records and high school yearbooks.

You can find the 1880 Iroquois County History and the 1950 pictorial book of Iroquois County farms. We have information on neighboring counties as well. Our collection includes a library of genealogy books for beginners or experienced genealogists.

We have microfilmed copies of area newspapers and four microfilm readers with printers. As an affiliate library of Family Search, you can order films from the LDS Library in Salt Lake City and read them in our Archives library.

Come in early and stay late. Once you get started, you may wish we were here more than just Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Welcome!!

P.S. Many thanks to Mary for her help in summarizing our many holdings!