Chicago Genealogy’s Most Well-Kept Secret; Or Chicago’s German Genealogy Gold Mine.

Chicago Genealogy’s Most Well-Kept Secret; Or Chicago’s German Genealogy Gold Mine.

If you have Chicago ancestors and are familiar with Chicago area research, you may already know about some record sources and strategies that are unique to Chicago. For example, you may know that Chicago streets were renumbered in 1909 and 1911. A Street Renumbering guide can be found at the Chicago History Museum .
If your Chicago Ancestors were Catholic, you may know that many Chicago Catholic Church records are digitized at FamilySearch. You may also know that many of these record images are not indexed and may require searching for your ancestors’ records by parish.
You may know that historically, working class Chicagoans typically preferred the Chicago Daily News to the Chicago Tribune. You can access digitized versions of the Chicago Daily News at Genealogy Bank.
You may also know that tracing your Chicago family before 1871 may prove difficult given the record loss from the Great Chicago Fire.
But chances are, you have not heard of Wesley Johnston’s website titled 45,000 Images of Newberry Library Chicago German Records Microfilm.

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