St. Clair County, Illinois Genealogical Research

Courthouse, IRAD, local and regional societies, vital records offices, online death index,

St. Clair County, Illinois Research and Resources: A Genealogist's Guide is available from the county society (SCCGS) - .

Histories and Atlases by title (offsite). Ask for these books when requesting research from libraries or volunteers.
Illinois Resources By County on the Univ of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign website.
Illinois County Histories at the Illinois State Library
Naturalizations and Declarations for St. Clair (offsite); and East St. Louis City Court Naturalizations (1874-1906)

Chancery Court (1815-1870). An index to plaintiff and defendant for divorce, suits to divide property, foreclosure.
Poor Farm (1874-1879). Extracts with name and place born (city, village, even in the old country).
St. Clair County Genealogical Society. Perform your own lookups in their online databases and indexes.

Illinois State Genealogical Society web site provides statewide cemetery locations (as available), Orphan Train children, links to other Illinois genealogical societies, and a subject index to their quarterly which has some St. Clair county people, places, and record transcriptions.
Archived documents (few, miscellaneous) of St. Clair County including Bible records, obituaries, wills, etc.
To the St. Clair County GenWeb Project Home
To all counties in Illinois GenWeb Project

Surrounding county websites for Clinton, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Randolph, Washington, and others; all part of the Illinois Gen Web Project.

Millstadt Township landowners taken from 1874 Atlas (offsite). See also Look-up Volunteer link below.

The Mail List Archives. Browse through these archived postings to ILSTCLAI-L, the St. Clair Co. GenWeb Project's official Mail List. It's FREE. Instructions: Type ILSTCLAI in the box that appears. You can even join the Mail List for our county, click here. Also FREE.

Family surname databases Provides links to others tracing all descendants of various St. Clair County families

Illinois Public Land Sales, a searchable index database of Federal land sales beginning 1814 in Illinois on the Illinois State Archives web site. This database includes both credit and cash sales of land from the Federal Government. It also includes lands issued for internal improvements such as railroads and canals. Date is that of purchase and differs from the date on the BLM website (immediately following).

Federal Land Patent Records, a searchable database from the Federal Bureau of Land Management - General Land Office Records (periodically goes offline, but check it occasionally, or order your patent in writing or by phone). We suggest you first use the Illinois Public Land Sales database (immediately above). The BLM site provides a digital image of the land patent for cash sales beginning 1820, and War of 1812 Illinois Military Tract patents. The patent date (certificate issued) will be months or years after the purchase date indicated in the Illinois Public Land Sales database.

Illinois State Newspaper Project contains a catalog of various newspapers maintained by the Illinois State Historical Society, from whom one can request copies of obituaries which may have appeared in a given newspaper.
Illinois State Archives Global Database Search Page, including links to the following databases: IL Statewide Marriage Index (incomplete for the State but complete for St. Clair 1763-1900); Statewide Death Index 1916 - c1950; Pre-1916 deaths (work in progress); Public Domain Land Sales in IL; IL Civil War Veterans; IL Spanish-American War Veterans; IL Blackhawk War Veterans; and IL Servitude and Emancipation Records. Also contains information on how to secure a copy of the records.

Bobbie's Surname List of St. Clair County researchers and the families they are tracing

Sons Of Spanish American War Veterans - Nelson A. Miles Camp No. 610 in St. Clair

St. Clair County Civil War Certificate Project. See the HELP! section for strategies in Civil War Soldier research, and links to military service and pension files a the National Archives. This project supports the Gustave Koerner House Preservation Project, a co-op effort of both the St. Clair County Genealogical Society and the St. Clair County Historical Society.

Links updated Sep 2008.