Research at the Illinois State Archives

When I first heard that the FGS conference would be held this year in Springfield, IL my first thought was that I could get in some research time before and after working the conference.  Ideally, I wanted to do some Brennen family research.  I thought about the logistics of researching them and came to the conclusion that Massac County was along way to go from Decatur where I would be staying after the conference.  My Womble research was pretty much finished for Illinois; however, I realize that I could always delve into the life of my grandmother’s brother, Ben who lived in Peoria, Rock Island, and Moline, Illinois.  I decided against researching him because again there was the distance factor. 

After much contemplation, I came up with doing as much research as possible at the Illinois State Archives and then visit a cemetery in Illinois where many members of the Yockey family are buried.

Before leaving for my trip, I researched what records pertinent to the families I’m researching were available at the state archives.  I found that not much is available at the Illinois State Archives in Springfield.  I was very interested in viewing their death certificates that are on microfilm. 

On a blustery Wednesday morning I started out from my hotel in Springfield with my sleuthing kit slung over my shoulder for the State Archives.  I had visited there when I was researching a family story and was basically engaged in what I like to refer to as guerilla genealogical research.  I found that the State Archives had changed and not exactly for the better, IMHO.  There was a security guard with an x-ray machine and metal detector all of which I thought was a plus.  I tried to follow all the rules and left my purse, jacket, and sleuthing kit in a locker.  The only items I took into the research room with me were a pencil and some pieces of paper that had information that would help me in my search.

When I had visited the archives before there had been a wonderfully helpful man that worked there, unfortunately it seemed that he had moved on to a higher plane.  Plenty of people wanted to help me, but I really wanted to explore the place first, since when I was there originally I hadn’t done this. 

What I learned in my exploring was that most of the records at the State Archives in Springfield pertain to the early years of the state of Illinois.  My husband’s family seemed to have settled there in the latter part of the 19^th century and so many of the records available at the archive weren’t pertinent to his paternal line. 

After exploring the place, I asked one guy about the death certificates and he seemed to want me to go off to the regional repositories.  I didn’t much care for this attitude, but after telling him that I had been there before and had looked at these records he was more helpful. 

I used the computer there to look up the exact dates for some of the deaths that I wanted to get.  Then he told me how to look up what microfilm roll the record would be on in some binders that kept that information.  He did mention that after 1935 or so that the records aren’t very well organized on the microfilm rolls.

He set me up at a machine and kindly told me how to load a microfilm roll and operate the machine.  The death certificates are arranged alphabetically by county on the rolls and then typically in alphabetical order by surname for the deceased. 

The death certificates I was looking for were: Jasper Lorenzo Yockey, death date: 14 July 1925; Zona Louisa Downey, death date:  8 June 1933; Richard Yockey, death date: 16 June 1925; Henry E. Brinnen, death date: 29 Oct. 1935; and Charlie Brinnen, death date: 3 Oct. 1935.

I had no trouble locating Jasper Yockey’s death certificate.  The information in the binder said that it was on roll 193 and it was!  I moved on to Richard Yockey.  His death certificate was supposed to be on roll 192, but I couldn’t find it.  I looked on both rolls 191 and 193 and still no Richard.  I decided that possibly his death certificate may have been recorded elsewhere since he died when he was 3 days old.  Maybe the government had categorized his death as a stillborn and it’s with those records.  I had a bit of a deadline with the amount of time that I could spend researching so I decided to put a period at the end of that line of research and move on to another relative.  I searched for Zona Yockey’s death certificate and this was supposed to be on roll 377, but I found it on 376 instead.  

The guy who helped me had said that the records for around 1935 and onwards weren’t in proper order and he really wasn’t joking when he said that.  Since I had found what Yockeys I had hoped to find I moved on to the Brinnen or Brennen family, as I know it to be spelled as.  In a previous post I had mentioned a bit about this family and how they’re connected to my Womble line.

I searched for Henry Brinnen as he was listed in the State Archives Death Index database.  His death certificate was listed as being on roll 431, but of course I didn’t find it there!  I felt that it had to be there and searched on the next roll 432 and he still wasn’t there.  I decided to try the roll prior to 431, which was 430 and couldn’t locate his death certificate.  I was determined not to give up looking for Henry in the death certificates, so I searched for him on roll 433 and finally had success! 

I considered searching for Charlie Brinnen’s death certificate, but since I couldn’t locate it with Henry’s and taking into account that they died around the same time, and that my research time was running out I decided to call it a day.

Copies are typically paid for at the end of your visit.  When I left I asked another person about the cost of them and he asked how many copies I had.  I showed him the three copies of the death certificates that I had made and he told me that there wasn’t any charge.

All of the death certificates stated where the deceased were buried.  I knew that it would be too far to travel to Massac County, IL to locate Henry’s grave, but I did want to visit Mound Cemetery where many Yockeys are buried.  In another post I will write about my visit to this cemetery.

What's New!

I completed the correspondence genealogy course at the end of August.  I had been working on this course since August 2009.  One of my co-workers suggested that I write a series of blog posts about my experiences working the course.  I definitely need to send the organization’s blog master an inquiry as to if they would even be interested in posting my experiences on their blog.  Nevertheless, if it doesn’t pan out--these articles will definitely be posted here! 

Worked my organization’s booth at FGS in Springfield, IL.  I really enjoyed meeting students and graders in person there.  The president of my organization purchased the genealogy social networking book that I blogged about previously. It was great to see someone else having an interest in how that plays into the world of genealogy.  I had wonderful to talks with various organizations that gave me some new ideas/clues to look into with my research. 

Took a much needed vacation after the conference and visited my family in Decatur.  Unfortunately after the conference, I caught a cold so this put a bit of a damper on my visit with the family.  I refused to let the cold keep me from working on my afghan and doing genealogical research. 

I have completed embroidering another strip while I was in IL.  However, I’ll be honest work on the afghan has suffered and I’ve been feeling unmotivated to work on it.  Since I finished my genealogy course, I’ve picked up trying to finish the Spanish course I’ve been doing on my own.  Years ago, I had enrolled in a Spanish 101-Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish course at my local community college.  Even though I was really enjoying the course and doing really well at it, I dropped it due to insomnia.  I decided to try to complete the course on my own and have worked on it off and on for many years.  Currently I’m on lesson 49 out of 52 lessons, so I very close to completing this.  The end portion of this course involves writing alot of compositions in Spanish.  I realize that I should focus on my afghan and then concentrate on the Spanish once I’ve finished it.

Before the conference started, I visited the Illinois State Archives to do some planned Brennan and Yockey family research.  I’ll post more about my visit in a later post. 

One of my plans was to visit Mound Cemetery near Hunt City, IL while I visited my family in Decatur.  After the conference and while feeling under the weather, my husband and I drove to the cemetery.  I had wanted to visit it because so many Yockeys are buried there.  I took pictures of many of the graves that I found and even shot a video of the location of Emily and John M. Yockey’s grave.  I’ll post more about this visit in a later post.

I need to scan and send the documents I found to my brother-in-law as well as post them to my WeRelate page as well as document my research in my research log.  Additionally, send him the video I made and post it and the gravesite photos to WeRelate .  I also made some time at the very last minute before I left IL to do some ‘home research’ and in the process I took a few Womble family items from my family’s house-with their permission of course!  One of these items I discovered that I had been referring to it incorrectly and will need to change this in my genealogy source citations that refer to this document.  Another reason to accurately cite your sources!!

Genealogy Social Networking Redux

When I began my blog back in March of this year, I wrote about plans to put the research I’ve done on the Womble family out on the internet.  I’m writing to announce that this probably won’t happen mainly due to my internet service provider, Verizon, taking away their free ftp access.

At first, I was very upset that they were doing this because I already had a site that was supported by their service, but this soon became a moot. 

In 2008, my brother-in-law sent me an email where he mentioned that he was using a website called WeRelate.  I looked at the information that he had put up on his page and found it unimpressive and went on with my life. 

Fast-forward about 3 years I received another email from the same brother-in-law asking that both my husband and I test a function on the WeRelate site.  To make a long story short, I created an account for myself on the site. 

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had joined the Genealogy Wise.  To be honest, I’ve become disappointed with it mainly because I feel that there’s nothing for me to do with it.  I did create a Womble surname group on it, but haven’t heard of anyone interested in joining me there. 

Also, one of my main reasons for getting an account on a genealogy site was so that I would have a space online where I could post my research as well as meet up with others who were researching the same family.

So far, I’ve been pretty happy with the WeRelate site because I could upload a GEDCOM file of my research as well as add pictures of both photos and documents that I’ve obtained during the course of my research. 

The downside is still that I’ve yet to meet up with another fellow Womble researcher; however, I’ve met other people on the site.  My brother-in-law is there, which is nice.  The space where our GEDCOM files meet can be edited by either one of us and this is a great feature. 

I did talk to someone who was researching a collateral line of the Brennen family.  This was a surprising find.  He mentioned that he had a photo of the grave of a Brennen family member.  I was very eager to see it and he offered to email it to me.  Here’s where this story gets interesting, I strongly considered giving him my email address.  I discussed it with my husband and his opinion was that the guy’s intentions were questionable.  The thought crossed my mind that why doesn’t he just add the photo to the page about that Brennen family member?  I wrote back that he could add the photo and have since heard nothing, nor has the photo been added.  This turn of events has led me to believe that my husband’s opinion was well founded.

I’d still like for my research to be accessible to family members who might be interested, but have yet to come up with a way to make this a reality.  Maybe the thing to do is to email them to let them know that I have research on there?