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E-mail:[1] archives@tufl.info.
Address:[2]
- 210 West Green Street
Urbana, Illinois 61801
Telephone:[1] 217-367-4025.
Fax: 217-531-7088.
Archives Hours and holidays:[3] Mon-Tue, Thu-Sat 9:00am-5:00pm; Wed 9:00am-9:00pm; Sun 1pm-5pm; Holiday closings
Map, directions, parking, and public transportation: Find Us.
Internet sites and databases:
- The Urbana Free Library hours, find us, contact, books, eResources, services, children, teens, local history and genealogy, events.
- Urbana Free Library Catalog online by keyword. Also available in WorldCat.
- Local History and Genealogy about us, local history online, resources, services, workshops, and blog.
- Local History and Genealogy (pdf brochure) services, contact, about, workshops, databases, collections, special collections, FamilySearch affiliate library.
- Local History and Genealogy Blog.
Their strength is Champaign County history, but they have good basic genealogy for the entire United States including printed genealogies, manuscripts, family folders, and microfilms.[4] They have online subscription databases such as America's GenealogyBank, World Vital Records, Heritage Quest, Fold3, and Ancestry Library Edition. Their regular collection includes 25,000 books, directories, newspapers, and school yearbooks.[5]
The Champaign County Historical Archives in the Urbana Free Library is the official repository for non-current county records. Special collections houses Champaign County births, marriages, deaths, naturalizations, and county and circuit court records, photos, maps, oral histories, and over 700 local organization newsletters.[5]
The Urbana Free Library also is a FamilySearch Affiliate Library.[5]
If you cannot visit or find a source at the Urbana Free Library, a similar source may be available at one of the following.
Overlapping Collections
- National Archives I, Washington DC, census, pre-WWI military service & pensions, passenger lists, naturalizations, passports, federal bounty land, homesteads, bankruptcy, ethnic sources, prisons, and federal employees.[6]
- Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana, premier periodical collection, including Midwestern genealogies, local histories, databases, military, censuses, directories, and passenger lists.[7]
- National Archives Great Lakes Region (Chicago) old federal court and agency records for Illinois and Midwest U.S. federal censuses 1790–1940; military service and pension indexes, passenger lists, naturalizations, Ancestry.com, HeritageQuest, Fold3.[8]
- Newberry Library, Chicago, a large repository with genealogies, local histories, censuses, military, land, indexes, vital records, court, and tax records mostly from the Mississippi Valley, eastern seaboard, Canada, and the British Isles.[9]
Similar Collections
- Arlington Heights Memorial Library a huge collection, with printed genealogies, manuscripts, periodicals, newspapers, special aids, surname folders—a great overall genealogy collection.[10]
- Chicago Public Library reference books, how-to-guides, histories, biographies.
- Lincoln Library, Springfield, indexed obituaries, city directories, the Sangamon Valley Collection has photos, yearbooks, histories, and maps for studying Sangamon and surrounding counties.</ref>
- Peoria Public Library enjoys a large genealogy and local history department, including many indexes, DAR files, and basic genealogy resources for the plains states.</ref>
Neighboring Collections
- Champaign County Clerk births, marriages, and deaths online
- Champaign County Clerk of the Circuit Court recent probates, civil, criminal records.
- Champaign County Recorder of Deeds land records, military discharge DD-214s.
- Champaign County Coroner suspicious or unusual deaths.
- U.S. District Court Central District of Illinois recent civil and criminal court records.
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Main Library one of the best book collections in America, including county histories, and farmers registers. Think of it as another archives for Illinois.</ref>
- Repositories in surrounding counties: Douglas, Edgar, Ford, McLean, Piatt, and Vermilion.
- Illinois Dept. of Health Vital Records, Springfield, birth, marriage, death, adoption, and divorces.
- Illinois State Archives, Springfield, county/state records, pre-Chicago fire sources, indexed vital records, early land grants, military records, all fed/state censuses, surname card index.[11]
- Illinois State Library, Springfield, state/federal records, federal censuses to 1920, plat books, IL county histories, Sanborn fire insurance maps, Rev. War pensions and bounty land warrants.</ref>
- Illinois State Genealogical Society, Springfield, research guidance, teaching via webinars and the ISGS blog for free, death certificates 1916-1947 for a fee. No research requests.[12]
- Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD), Springfield, HQ of 7 regional archives of local Illinois county/town records: birth, marriage, death, land, tax, voting reg., probate, naturalization, civil & criminal court, coroner, poorhouse.[13] For Champaign County see IRAD-Illinois State University.
- Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, Springfield, genealogy, plat maps, atlases, oral and county history, cemeteries, census, vital records, naturalizations in many counties.[14]
- Chicago History Museum 20 million manuscripts, letters, certificates, diaries, genealogy charts, log books, journals, memoirs, minutes, muster rolls, scrapbooks, sermons, speeches, and telegrams.[10]
- Chicago Title and Trust for a fee they will search property records prior to the Chicago fire.[10]
- John A. Logan College Library, Carterville, this library is a focal point of Southern Illinois genealogy. Their collection is huge.</ref>
- Pritzker Military Museum and Library, Chicago, 45,000 military history books, unit histories, photos, uniforms, equipment, insignia, and ships of many world militaries. They help genealogists.[15]
- South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society, Hazel Crest, a very good collection with local histories, genealogies, naturalizations, Pullman Car Works personnel, obituaries, church histories.[10]
- Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Lovejoy Library best library in southern IL with a large genealogical collection of newspapers, biographies, county histories, family folders, and maps.</ref>
- Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, Rock Island, IL, Swedish church records, census, passenger lists, lodges, newspapers, directories.[16]
- University of Chicago Library plentiful historical records, including Durrett Collection of historical Kentucky and Ohio River Valley manuscripts of early people in the Ohio Valley.[10]
- University of Illinois at Chicago, biography, periodicals, newspapers, oral history, ethnic studies.
- Asher Library, Chicago, Spertus Institute for Jewish Studies 500,000 books, and films.
- Brethren Historical Library and Archives, Elgin, IL, cultural, socio-economic, theological, genealogical, and institutional history of the Brethren.
- Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives, Elk Grove Village, IL, serves historians, congregations, synods, genealogists and others interested in Lutheran history.
- Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago Archives parish records, priest biographies, sacramental, school, or orphanage records.
- Repositories in surrounding states: Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Wisconsin
- National Personnel Records Center (NPRC), St. Louis, MO, military and civil services personnel records. For servicemen and servicewomen discharged from 1912 to 1953.[17] [18]
- Polish Genealogical Society of America, Milwaukee, WI, 60,000 books on Polish history, art, culture, reference.
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