Fall 2012 Local History & Genealogy Workshop Series

The Champaign County Historical Archives is pleased announced its Fall 2012 Local History & Genealogy Workshop Series, held in conjunction with the Parkland College Community Eduction program. This year's schedule includes courses such as Introduction to Genealogy, Researching Cemetery Records, Reading the History in Old Family Photographs, and Naturalization Records.

For more information on these classes and how to register, click here.

Behind the scenes: Reflections from our Reference Intern

 Guess blog post by our Reference Intern, Brandon. You'll be missed!



For the past ten months I have been working as a Reference Intern at the Champaign County Historical Archives.  Unfortunately, today will be my final day on the desk, as I will be moving to Chicago at the end of the week to begin a summer position with the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Special Collections Library.  During the time I have spent working in the archives I have learned a great deal about providing effective reference services to members of the community, and about genealogy and local history research in general.  In addition to having an opportunity to meet new patrons and assist them with research that is often very personal for them, I have also enjoyed getting to know my colleagues in the archives and throughout the library.  The best part about my internship experience is that at no point did I ever feel like a part-time intern, but rather was quickly welcomed as a full-fledged Urbana Free Library employee and contributing member of the archives staff.

This was a very exciting, and challenging, time for me to be working at the Champaign County Historical Archives.  Locally, I both witnessed and participated in the transition to a new catalog system for the entire library.  For the archives, this meant moving from the old Local History Online database to a new Polaris catalog designed specifically for the archives.  This experience gave me a chance to learn a new catalog system, and to help our patrons learn how to perform effective searches in the new system.  On a broader level, I also had the once -in-a-decade chance to be working in the archives when the new 1940 Census was released to the public.  In the weeks following the release, we had countless patrons come into the archives who were interested in finding “their people” in the Census records.  Because the census images for Champaign County have not yet been indexed, assisting those patrons proved to be a challenging, yet manageable endeavor.  Working together as a team, the archives staff utilized the tools at our disposal to design a work-around for determining correct Enumeration District numbers and locating names in the corresponding Census images released by the National Archives.  Understandably, our patrons were not interested in waiting months for the Census to be indexed, and thanks to the staff of the Champaign County Historical Archives, they did not have to.

In addition to assisting patrons at the desk, during my time at the archives I also processed two important collections of archival records that will undoubtedly see a great deal of use by our patrons in the future.  The first collection, the records of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, documents the history of an important religious and social institution in the local African American community.  The second collection project I worked on involved assembling a combined collection of school ephemera materials from local schools, both past and present, throughout Champaign County.  In total, this collection fills a dozen boxes, covers approximately 150 years of student, faculty, and administrator activities at schools ranging in size from one-room rural school houses that have since disappeared, to larger institutions like Urbana High School that endure today.  This collection will continue to grow indefinitely, as new donations from local community members arrive at the archives for years to come.

My experience working as a Reference Intern at the Champaign County Historical Archives has been a great one.  I am not often given to sentimental feelings, but I will definitely miss coming into work every week and seeing the familiar faces of my colleagues and regular patrons, and especially the new faces of the patrons who are visiting the archives for the first time.  I would encourage any GSLIS student who is interested in archives and special collections librarianship to consider the Champaign County Historical Archives when it comes time for them to seek out volunteer, practicum, or, if they are lucky, internship opportunities in the area.

Spring 2012 Workshop Series: Genealogy & Local History

Event Poster PDF

The Champaign County Historical Archives is pleased to announce the 2012 Spring Workshop Series. This year's sessions are:

• Intermediate Genealogy
• Using the Internet for your Genealogy Research
• African American Genealogy for Beginners

See below for a description of the workshops.

To register, please call Parkland College at 217-353-2055. You may also pick up an application in the Champaign County Historical Archives on the second floor of The Urbana Free Library.
Parkland Registration Form (PDF)

Intermediate Genealogy

You have started finding documents about your family. Now what? Nicole Miller will show you strategies for analyzing and interpreting information. Topics include transcribing, abstracting, and summarizing documents; evaluating conflicting sources; land records and agrarian research; incorporating historical research into family history; evaluating information with timelines and extraction forms; and more.
Thursdays, February 2 - March 8
6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Course Number: WCE 418-001
Fee: $65 • Registration Deadline: January 26
Location: Champaign County Historical Archives at The Urbana Free Library

Using the Internet for Your Genealogy Research

Steve Szabados will provide brief demonstrations of most of the major online resources and will discuss methods to find many more resources. Unlock some of the secrets to be found at websites, such as FamilySearch, Ellis Island, Find a Grave, Ancestry, Heritage Quest, and many more. Discuss the use of message boards and online family trees to help solve brickwall problems and discover some European resources.
Saturday, March 31
10:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Course Number: WLI 785-001
Fee: $25 • Registration Deadline: March 22
Location: Lewis Auditorium at The Urbana Free Library

African American Genealogy for Beginners

Learn about specific research techniques for African Americans. Deanna Martin-Osuagwu will also discuss databases and other invaluable resources that will help you trace your family tree.
Saturday, April 7
9:00 a.m. - Noon
Course Number: WCE 317-001
Fee: $30 • Registration deadline: March 30
Location: Parkland College Business Training & Community Education

Special Event: Sullivan’s Island: The African-American Ellis Island

Presented by Evelyn Hood, The African-American Cultural & Genealogical Society (Decatur, IL)
Saturday, February 18 • 1:00 - 2:00 p.m.
Lewis Auditorium


Many Americans are more familiar with West African slaves entering American soil from the shores of the Caribbean Islands. However, Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, served as the main point of entry for African slaves—a quarantine station for those individuals who would be sold into slavery; over 200,000 African men, women and children who endured the Middle Passage. About forty percent of today’s African-American population can trace their ancestral roots to West Africa through the Sullivan’s Island/Charleston gateway, which is the percent equivalent of white Americans passing through Ellis Island. For many of today’s African-American population, this new found information could hold the key to completing the exploration of their ancestry.

Click here for the event poster.

Fall Genealogy & Local History Workshop Series

The Champaign County Historical Archives is pleased to announce the Fall 2011 Genealogy and Local History workshops, held in conjunction with Parkland College.

To register, please call Parkland College at (217) 353-2055, or pick up an application at the The Champaign County Historical Archives on the second floor of The Urbana Free Library today!

The workshops:

Genealogy Software Showcase

FREE! No registration required.

Expert demonstrations of multiple genealogical software programs for both PC and MAC platforms. Walk-ins welcome and everyone is invited!

Date: Saturday, August 6
Time: 9:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Location: The Lewis Auditorium at The Urbana Free Library

Genealogy Software Showcase Schedule:

9:30 - 10:30 a.m. • Legacy Family Tree with Candace Wilmot

10:45 - 11:45 a.m. • Reunion ( MAC application) with Ann Salzmann

12:00 - 1:00 p.m. • Personal Ancestral File with Nicole Miller

1:00 - 3:00 p.m. • Family Tree Maker with Matt Helm

Introduction to Genealogy

Dates: Thursdays, August 25 - October 13
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Course Number: WCE 616-001
Fee: $65
Registration Deadline: August 18
Location: The Champaign County Historical Archives at The Urbana Free Library

Description: Genealogist Nicole Miller will help you get started on your family history by learning how to collect information from a variety of sources, including vital records, census data, maps, land records, and websites. You will also learn the crucial task of organizing and analyzing your information.

Organizing & Writing Your Family History

Date: Saturday, September 24
Time: 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Course Number: WLI 707-001
Fee: $20
Registration Deadline: September 16
Location: The Lewis Auditorium at The Urbana Free Library

Description: Make your research efforts more efficient so your results are easier to read, digest, and share. Stephen Szabados, genealogy researcher, will review a simple method of organizing research into readable documents while revealing nontraditional sources of information that can add rare treasures to your history. He will also highlight more advanced formats that can turn your history into a "must-read" for your family.

Please note: This workshop is not a how-to workshop on family history publishing.

Irish Genealogy

Date: Saturday, October 8
Time: 10:00 AM - Noon
Course Number: WLI 802-001
Fee: $15
Registration Deadline: September 30
Location: The Lewis Auditorium at The Urbana Free Library

Description: Genealogical Society member David Hass will introduce you to methods for researching your ancestors from Ireland. Topics include: on overview of Irish history, study of surnames, available historical records, and research strategies for working with church, census, civil, tax, property, and other records. Advanced topics will be explored.


We look forward to seeing you at one of these exciting programs!

PhotoAtlas

The Champaign County Historical Archives is pleased to announce our new PhotoAtlas web service. PhotoAtlas is an application that allows us to place our audio-visual files, along with their index records, on modern mapping software. This provides a rich geospatial context to the records of our local communities previously unavailable to us. We've started with a tour of historic downtown Urbana, and plan to add more tours with more multimedia files (including sound files, such as oral histories) in the very near future. In the meantime, we invite you to give it a try! Here is the link:

http://tufl-web-1.tufl.org/paaccess/Default.aspx?tourID=1

“I wish you were here if only for a short time.” Champaign County and the Civil War, 1861-1865

As we reflect on the 150th anniversary of the opening of hostilities, our display case exhibit commemorates the sacrifices of the men and women of Champaign County during the American Civil War. Images, letters, official documents, and a surprise or two help to tell the story of those who endured those difficult years from the local communities. All of the materials for the exhibit are taken from our collections here at the Champaign County Historical Archives.

We invite you to stop by and take a look anytime during our open hours: Monday-Saturday, 9AM-5PM, and Sunday 1-5PM.

Local History Online - April 2011

April saw 1,633 records in 23 record series added to the Historical and Genealogical Index database. Indexing of County birth registers once again led the count, with 618 records created.

The work of creating records for materials contained in the Museum of the Grand Prairie's Doris K. Wylie Hoskins Archive of Cultural Diversity was begun this month. Over 670 files, pertaining to African American genealogy and history in East Central Illinois, are contained in this rich collection.

Historical and Genealogical Index database totals as of April 30, 2011:

Records 616,837

Headings 3,455,762:

Names 1,809,357

Subjects 41,981

Addresses 40,254

Newspaper article titles 390,622

Digital content (jpg, pdf, audio, links to web pages) 8,264

Spring 2011 Conservation Workshops @ The Urbana Free Library

Registration is free, and participants will receive a toolkit to keep. Registration is limited to 12 participants for each workshop. All workshops will be held at the Urbana Free Library. Please email Annie Peterson (peters60@illinois.edu) or Jennifer Hain Teper (jhain@illinois.edu ) or call Jennifer at 217-244-5689 with any questions.

The workshops are conducted by the University of Illinois Libraries Conservation Unit. To register, please use the Library Staff Events Calendar. Find the workshop you wish to attend, and fill in the required registration information.

Basic Book Repair for Public Library Employees

Friday, March 18 1-5pm

Friday, April 29, 1-5pm

Basic Book Repair for Public Library Employees is offered to any public library employee who wants to learn repairs that are appropriate for modern circulating materials. It will include an introduction to book structure and causes of deterioration followed by hands-on repair training. Repairs will include mending and filling of paper losses, dry surface cleaning, tightening hinges, consolidation of frayed corners, spine reinforcement, and making book weights for use in repairs.

Basic Book Repair is being held twice to accommodate the number of library staff interested in attending; each participant should attend only one session.

Caring for Historical Collections

Saturday, March 12, 1-5pm

Caring for Historical Collections is for anyone who works with older, delicate books or papers. Private collectors as well as staff at archives, historical societies, or public libraries with older materials are encouraged to attend. The workshop will include a historical overview of book and paper manufacture and structures, a review of common preservation challenges in historical collections, followed by hands-on training. Repairs will include encapsulation of fragile documents, construction of simple book boxes, and consolidation of deteriorated leather.

Caring for Photographic Collections

Saturday, April 23, 1-5pm

Caring for Photographic Collections is open to anyone working with photographic material, including staff at collecting institutions and private collectors. The workshop will begin with a historical overview of photographic history and formats, followed by information on the care and storage of historic photographs and hands-on training. The hands-on portion will include identification of historic photograph samples, and an introduction to options for protective enclosures for photographs.

Digital Oral Histories Available Online

You don't realize it - how those prejudices hurt us young people in those days.

We here at the Champaign County Historical Archives are pleased to announce that our extensive oral history collection is being digitized and made available online through Local History Online. The audio files can be streamed or downloaded as mp3 files, and many also include pdf files of transcripts.

The collection is particularly robust in documenting the African American experience in Champaign-Urbana. Rural life in Champaign County is also well represented in these reminiscences.

Have a listen to these unique slices of history! Here are a couple of representative examples:

http://ccha.tufl.org/ccha/records/00040000/000400000032.htm

http://ccha.tufl.org/ccha/records/00040000/000400000070.htm

Historical and Genealogical Index database for July 2010

3,663 records in 33 record series were added to the Historical and Genealogical Index database in July, bringing the overall record total to more than 600,000 records. Below is a list of other significant milestones in HGI database growth.

203,457 records July 2001

305,620 records December 2003

400,951 records November 2005

502,835 records August 2007

602,822 records July 2010

Leading this month's indexing are Champaign County newspapers. 1,355 articles, obituaries, and other news items were added to the database in July. Of note is the return to indexing current birth, wedding, and anniversary announcements of Champaign County people printed in the News-Gazette. Indexing of these items was suspended April 1, 2007, because of staff time constraints. At this time, we do not plan to retrospectively index those missing months for these series, but merely resume indexing as of July 1, 2010.

Inputting of Champaign County official records continues to be another large part of the overall work completed, with 1,280 records entered from four series. Important in this group of records is the beginning of inputting of the Archives' Champaign County Recorder's deeds records. These records, located on 53 microfilm reels, span the period 1833 through 1886. Entries will include the names of grantors, grantees, and a simplified description of the location of the land purchased. A pdf image of each deed will then be linked to the indexing record in HGI.

Finally, mention should be made of some important new and on-going work that does not show up in the HGI's monthly statistics. In the Special Collections series, existing records for the Archives' boxed collections are being reindexed and reformated to more accurately reflect the contents of each collection and provide greater access. PDF images of the inventory sheets of each Special Collections box are also being added to the various collections' indexing records. A final project not reflected in monthly statistics is that being done to reformat existing HGI records for individual photographs. Over 800 records are being upgraded to meet the current Archives standard for description and subject access, along with their corresponding photographs being scanned for presentation in HGI.


Historical and Genealogical Index database totals as of July 31, 2010:

Records 602,822

Headings 3,386,390

Names 1,772,897

Subjects 38,891

Addresses 39,097

Newspaper article titles 376,633

Digital content (jpg, pdf, audio, links to web pages) 5,987

New publications in the Archives: July 2010

27 titles were added to the Archives' collection in July. Works pertaining to the history of various local buildings continue to dominate the listing. Some family histories were also added, having been removed from the Archives' personal and family vertical files.

For a complete listing of items cataloged, go here.

Historical and Genealogical database, June 2010

From Howard:

June saw a significant increase in the size of the Historical and Genealogical Index database, with 4,187 records added in 35 record series. The largest area of growth was in Champaign County records, as 1,210 death register and 233 birth register entries were indexed. In addition, 410 Champaign County Jail incarceration records from late 1936 were added.

Work with Champaign County newspapers prior to 1900 has begun in earnest, with 476 news items, death notices, or obituary articles being indexed from the Champaign County Gazette, the Champaign Daily Gazette, the Champaign Daily News, and the Champaign County Herald. Certain indexed articles, mostly of general historical interest, have also been scanned and are linked to their indexing record in the HGI.

106 records were added for titles in the Archives' Champaign County newspapers collection. These records include bibliographic information about each newspaper title and a detailed statement of the issues available in the Archives both in print and on microfilm.

Finally, two Internet resources pertaining to Champaign County African American men and women were indexed in June. The Early American Museum's "This Legacy Is Yours" and "Your Legacy Too" web pages contain biographical sketches of 129 prominent Champaign County citizens both past and present. Each HGI record includes a link to each individual's biography as presented on the Museum's site.

Historical and Genealogical Index database totals as of June 30, 2010:

Records: 599,159
Headings: 3,368,337

• Names: 1,763,752
• Subjects: 38,243
• Addresses: 38,802
• Newspaper article titles: 374,973

Digital content (jpg, pdf, audio, links to web pages): 5,312

New publications in the Archives: June 2010

From Howard:

The Archives collection grew by only 32 titles in June, as much of this month's cataloging time was devoted to adding bibliographic information and detailed holdings statements for many of the Archives' Champaign County newspapers to the Historical and Genealogical database. While similar work will be included in the processing time over the next few months, the work of adding the remaining Champaign-Urbana and University of Illinois buildings student papers and National Register nominations will be resumed.

Of those books added this month, a sizable number were donated to the Archives by local historian Dannel McCollum. These items focused primarily on American Indians and on western Indiana. We welcome his generous donation of these important historical works.

For a complete listing of items cataloged, click here.

Indexing in the Historical and Genealogical Database - April

2,993 records were added to the database in the past month. Once again this month, the greatest number of records were added in the University of Illinois Illio yearbook record series, where 882 pages from the 1941 through 1954 Illios were indexed. Archives staff member Karla Gerdes continues her work indexing Champaign County school directories. She was able to add 717 records from the 1925 through 1927 directories. Another 404 records for Urbana Historic Preservation Commission historic house resource surveys were added, which makes the total of all historic structure surveys to 1,747.

Finally, Archives volunteer Lloyd Baker was able to scan almost 800 of the Archives' ancestor charts this month. The resulting pdf images have been attached to their corresponding records in the Historical and Genealogical database and can now be viewed online.

Historical and Genealogical database totals as of April 30, 2010:

Records: 592,392

Headings: 3,333,913
Names: 1,746,025
Subjects: 37,774
Addresses: 37,965
Newspaper article titles: 372,714

Digital content (jpg, pdf, audio, links to web sites): 4,626

New Publications in the Archives - April

From the Archives resident cataloging expert, Howard Grueneberg:

April saw a continuation of cataloging works previously located in the Archives' vertical files.

Of the 57 titles added to the Lincoln Trail Libraries System Horizon database this month, 16 were National Historic Register applications for Champaign-Urbana buildings, most on the campus of the University of Illinois. Look for many more of these works to be added to the cataloged collection in the coming months. Additionally, 11 Illinois county atlases from the popular series by Arphax Publishing were brought into the Archives collection.

For the complete listing of items cataloged in April, click here.

A Name Lost to History: John C. Moses

The plaque you see above was donated to the Champaign County Historical Archives a number of years ago. It was commissioned by Judge Joseph Cunningham, and displayed prominently in the courthouse until it came here.

David Davis, Supreme Court justice and associate of Abraham Lincoln, once stated, "Captain Moses ought to be mentioned in any history of Champaign County." So ... who was Captain Moses?

John C. Moses, born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1825, migrated to Brown County, Illinois, with his parents in his youth. He joined the volunteer infantry during the Mexican War in 1847 and rose to the rank of Captain (hence his honorary title).

Mustering out of the service at the end of the war, he returned to Brown County and studied law. He served as a state legislator and Brown County sheriff before removing to east central Illinois to practice law, first in Danville (1856), and then to Urbana (1858).

In Urbana, he associated himself with an up and coming group of talented lawyers, including prominent names such as Abraham Lincoln, David Davis, William Somers, and Thomson Webber.

Stricken with consumption, he died at home on May 16, 1860. Only 35 years old, he left behind his wife Eliza and two small children, John and Abby.

If not for his untimely death, his name may have become as familiar as Busey, Carle, and Cunningham. But, as such, it has faded into history.

Click here for the related index entries for Captain Moses from our own Local History Online.

Indexing in the Historical and Genealogical database - March

March showed continued accelerated growth in the number of records in the Historical and Genealogical portion of the Archives' Local History Online database, with 3,741 new records being added. Of this number, the largest gain was in indexed pages of the University of Illinois Illio yearbooks. Volunteers Nancy and Ray Sanden, who are working at indexing every Illio page that contains photographs of Champaign County students, indexed 984 pages from the 1928 through 1940 yearbooks. Archives staff also added 802 records for Preservation and Conservation Association historic property inventories and Urbana Historic Preservation Commission historic resource surveys. Each of these records is accompanied by the actual survey presented in pdf form online. Finally, volunteer Mary Margaret Jones' work (of more than five years!) indexing obituaries from the News-Gazette for the period 1920 through 1935 is nearing conclusion. More than 550 records of death notices, obituaries, and funeral notices for the months of August through December of 1934 and January through May of 1935 were added to the database.


Historical and Genealogical database totals as of March 31, 2010:

Records 590,100

Headings 3,317,576
Names 1,736,836
Subjects 37,465
Addresses 37,651
Newspaper article titles 371,476

Digital content (jpg, pdf, audio, links to web sites) 3,747

Now Available in Local History Online

Souvenir, Elks’ Minstrel Entertainment [Call no.: ILLINOIS/(Champ)/BEN]

This 51 page program, dating from 1910, includes portrait photographs of many of the members of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks Lodge 991, most all of whom were Urbana’s most influential citizens at that time. The program also features a page of portrait photographs of the infant and preschool aged sons of some of these members, this page bearing the caption “We want to be Elks some day.” The names of all the people pictured have been entered into the Historical and Genealogical Index.

Greetings from your Champaign County Historical Archives!

Hello!

This is the official blog for the Champaign County Historical Archives here at The Urbana Free Library. We'll be using this little corner of the online universe to talk about interesting historical and genealogical tidbits, programs and exhibits we are offering, as well as some of the exciting resources we are working on to assist you in your research needs. We'll see you online soon!