Winner of the National Federation of Press Women Instructional Nonfiction Award (3rd Place), 2005

Winner of the Midwest Independent Publisher’s Association (MIPA) Hobby/How To Award (1st Place), 2005

Winner of the Illinois Woman's Press Association Instructional Nonfiction Award (1st Place), 2005

The Chicago Roots of Your Family Tree

For almost 175 years, a great metropolis on the shores of a freshwater sea has sent a siren call to immigrants internal and external, giving most Americans some kind of link to the City of Big Shoulders. Whether your people came west from New England in the early days of settlement, or north from Mississippi in the Great Migration; whether they sailed from Sweden and Sicily, or flew from Budapest and Prague; whether they settled here permanently or temporarily, this easy-to-use reference guide will help you document them.

Family historian Grace DuMelle provides the means to trace your Chicago connections like a pro. She shows you not just what to research, but how to research. Without wading through lots of preliminaries, choose any of the self-contained chapters that focus on the questions beginners most want answered and jump right in!

• Where do I start?
• When and where was my ancestor born?
• When did my ancestor come to America?
• What did my ancestor do for a living?
• Where did my ancestor live?
• Where is my ancestor buried?

Other chapters cover the nuts and bolts of the mechanics that are the key to making your family's past come alive, with highlights summarizing important points:

• Examples of documents such as death certificates, church registers and U.S. census entries
• Chicago-area research facilities: what they have and how to access it
• Researching using newspapers, machines and catalogs
• Sources for specific ethnic research
• Sources for long-distance research

In finding your Chicago ancestors, you will not only better understand your and your family's history, but also your and your family's involvement in the history of a great American city.

* * * * *

Grace DuMelle founded Heartland Historical Research Service, which has specialized in house, family, and oral histories since 1995. She also assists family historians at the Newberry Library.

Tips and Tricks in the pages of . . .

Finding Your Chicago Ancestors
A Beginner’s Guide to Family History in the City and Cook County

• Not-to-be-missed sources for urban genealogy. (p. 13)
• Backward is good, forward is bad. (pp. 14–15)
• The big fat books packed with birth dates that nobody knows about. (p. 25)
• How to get your hands on unreleased U.S. censuses. (p. 23)
• What happened in 1922 that changed the search for female ancestors. (p. 30)
• Want to bag another ancestor? A posse is better than Marshal Dillon. (p. 34)
• The two places in the Chicago area with self-serve birth certificates. (p. 36)
• Go Hoosier if you can’t find your ancestor’s marriage in Cook County. (pp. 52–53)
• Read this before you say, "My ancestor didn't have an obituary." (pp. 202–203)
• The three towns that were mini-Renos for divorce filings. (p. 63)
• So you've got your ancestor's divorce decree—what mistake are you making? (pp. 60, 63)
• Try playing "online bingo" to find an elusive married name. (pp. 79, 81)
• Did your ancestor live on Fake Street? (p. 92)
• Travel back in time to "the old neighborhood." (pp. 96–97)
• Sources for firefighter forebears. (p. 116)
• Unlocking hidden records of the old Chicago City Cemetery. (pp. 136–137)
• If your ancestor came from Hungary and spoke Slovak, was he Hungarian or Slovak? (p. 164)
• "Back-door" method for finding your ancestor in the census. (pp. 190–194)
• Digital ways of finding death notices without having death dates. (p. 208)
• The presidential library that lets you borrow its newspapers. (p. 211)
• Where is she? Two indexes to try if your ancestor isn't in county or state death indexes. (pp. 222–224)
• You can do it! How to load film in a microfilm reader. (p. 237)
• Great stuff for genealogists, open evenings and Sundays. (pp. 278–281)
• Research on the cheap: The website that tells you which libraries nationwide hold which books. (p. 297)