ILLINOIS STATE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY
ANCESTRY WORLD ARCHIVES PROJECT
The Illinois State Genealogical Society has partnered with the Ancestry World Archives Project to preserve historical records. Ancestry.com, the world's largest online family history resource, created the World Archives Project to empower individuals everywhere to index, or transcribe, historical data and publish a permanent archive of the date online. Through this partnership, ISGS will index important community records which Ancestry.com will add to its site, making the records searchable and more easily accessible for others pursuing their family history research.
Ancestry.com has requested the help of ISGS for the indexing of naturalization information it has digitized for Cook County as well as surrounding areas in northern Illinois, southern Wisconsin, northwest Indiana and a portion of Iowa . These records cover all courts.
ISGS is looking for member volunteers who would consider participating in this project. Ancestry would arrange for the download of the record batches. The task would be to key-in about a dozen pieces of information from type-written data into a file. The best part is that this work can be done in the comfort of your home and at any hour of the day or night.
Why does ISGS support this project? Wherever the index appears, the forms will include the logo and contact information for the society providing the assistance, raising the awareness of the society.
What do you gain from your participation? You will become an expert on the source material you are indexing, make a meaningful contribution to genealogical research and raise the awareness of ISGS—and that means the potential for more family contacts.
Volunteers can go directly to the website www.ancestry.com/worldarchivesproject to sign up. In the middle of the page is a list of the projects. Please choose Illinois Naturalizations (our project). Clicking on it will take you to the next screen which has a place for registration. You will be asked for your name and e-mail. Continue to follow the prompts, and your response to "how did you find out about the project" should be ISGS. When you complete the registration, the special "tool" that facilitates the process will be downloaded. When that is completed, you are ready to begin at any time.
All indexes created through the World Archives Project will remain accessible for free on Ancestry.com. Ancestry.com will also donate a digital copy of the index and images of the original records back to ISGS for all projects it sponsors.
Our organization is excited to play an active role in this unique effort. Through the World Archives Project, we have a chance to preserve records important to our community’s history and help make them more easily accessible for others researching their roots.
If you have any problems or questions that are not addressed in the FAQ section, our Ancestry contact is Loretto Szucs.
Your effort to help ISGS with this important project is most appreciated. Thank you!
