Changes Coming at ChicagoGenealogy.com
Welcome! When I launched this site in 2003, my goal was to provide quick, affordable access to the early Chicago birth, marriage, and death records that were available to me at a nearby Family History Center. Word of my service spread and by the end of 2009, I had helped over 3000 researchers find Chicago records.
A lot has changed since 2003 and now all but a small group of the records that I used to lookup are online for free at FamilySearch's Record Search. That's good news for all of us. If you're a researcher, it means that you now have free access to a wonderful collection of Chicago vital records searchable in powerful ways that have never before been possible. For me, it means that I can use the time I used to spend on lookups working on new projects.
Many of you know that my husband and I, along with our technical co-founder, are hard at work on Genlighten.com, a website that grew out of my ChicagoGenealogy lookup experience. I've always tried to be just an email away for my ChicagoGenealogy clients and we want to provide the same level of customer support over at Genlighten. That's my job. And then we've been brainstorming ways to make the site easier to use ever since it went live a few months ago and much of our time this summer will be spent getting some important updates ready to go.
I'll continue to offer quick lookups--for example, if you need a Chicago death certificate from 1923-1947, let me know--but I'm also thinking about the possibility of offering other types of research. I've made some enjoyable trips to the Circuit Court Archives recently to learn about probate, divorce, and naturalization research and I'm looking forward to learning more about how to work with Cook County property records.
And then I'm looking forward to making some updates on this site. I have a few things planned
- Change the "Online Indexes" page to a "Records Online" page. My goal is to make it easy for you to find the records that are online both for free and for a fee.
- Merge the "Lookups Available" and the "Request Lookups" pages. Update the new page to show which offline records can be obtained from other researchers through Genlighten.com and which lookups I will continue to offer.
- Create a new page for "Frequently Asked Questions" and invite site visitors to submit questions.
- Add new blog posts to share what I know about research in Chicago. One topic I'd like to address soon is "Planning a Research Trip."
but I'd enjoy hearing your ideas. Whether your a returning visitor or someone who just surfed in for the first time, let me know what you'd like to see as part of the new ChicagoGenealogy website.
Cynthia