{"id":320827,"date":"2025-11-27T02:50:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T02:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/researching-family-history-at-the-chicago-history-museum\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T02:50:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T02:50:35","slug":"researching-family-history-at-the-chicago-history-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=320827","title":{"rendered":"Researching Family History at the Chicago History Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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In this blog post, CHM research center associate Annika Kohrt highlights resources in the Chicago History Museum\u2019s Abakanowicz Research Center that may be helpful in conducting genealogical research.<\/em><\/p>\n

Are you looking to unravel the stories of your Chicago ancestors? The Chicago History Museum\u2019s Abakanowicz Research Center<\/a> (ARC) might be a helpful stop on your journey. Our librarians are happy to assist you in navigating the resources in our Family History Guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Group of immigrants at Union Station, Chicago, 1950. ST-17500902-E1, Chicago Sun-Times collection, CHM <\/em><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with your ancestor\u2019s arrival in Chicago. Were they born here? Vital records are handled out of the Cook County Clerk\u2019s Office<\/a>, but you might find newspapers listing their birth in our newspaper databases.<\/p>\n

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Wedding announcements for (from left) Mrs. Harold H. Adams Jr. (Frances Amelia Cannon), Mrs. John O. Stoll (Margaret Crowe), Mrs. Robert Morrison (Florence Meling), and Mrs. John J. Schwab (Catherine Tunison) (lower center) in the <\/em>Chicago Daily News, October 10, 1925.<\/em><\/p>\n

If they were adopted, a record of them might exist in one of our orphanage records<\/a>. If they moved to Chicago from another country, there are plenty of records of the immigrant communities of Chicago, and we can help you imagine their life with published, photographic, and archival material from the relevant enclaves. Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and the one where your ancestors lived deeply shaped their lives.<\/p>\n

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Death notices in the <\/span><\/i>Chicago Daily News<\/span>, October 10, 1925<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our archive\u2019s strength is really in contextualizing and providing narrative to the experiences of people living in Chicago throughout history. So, your next question might be the essential one: What was their life like in Chicago? If you\u2019re lucky, something newsworthy might have happened in their life, and you\u2019ll find results in our newspaper databases when you search for their name. If their name and address don\u2019t appear in the newspaper, you can investigate where they lived with the city directories. We have a complete collection of city and telephone directories, dating from 1839 to the present.<\/p>\n

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Chicago City Directory, 1877\u201378, p. 819. Photograph by CHM staff<\/em><\/p>\n

The city directories will also tell you a person\u2019s occupation, and if you know what company they worked for, you might be able to find some company records and publications. If you have their address, you can use fire insurance maps to look at the neighborhood they lived in, as close as you can manage to the time that they lived there. You can look for photographs and neighborhood histories, and you might be able to find a school or church that they attended. We have a yearbook collection<\/a> and high school and college periodicals. Some churches published anniversary publications and histories of their spaces, which you might also be able to find in the ARC.<\/p>\n

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Fire insurance map of Sedgwick Street, Hammond Avenue, and North Park Avenue near Wisconsin Street, Chicago, c. 1892. Published in<\/em> Atlas of Chicago, Volume 2, Plate 158<\/em><\/p>\n

If your ancestor was a performer, you might find a program featuring them in their church\u2019s ephemera, or you might find something in our theater, dance, and music program collection.<\/p>\n

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The cast list for Julius Caesar at the Chicago Opera House, September 24, 1888. Photograph by CHM staff<\/em><\/p>\n

This is the essence of research at any archive: there are dozens of questions to answer, and each new discovery may send you to a new source. Some people\u2019s lives and communities are very well documented, and some are not. Parts of this pattern are because of systemic differences in historic preservation and collecting, but some of this is due to luck as well! For example, we don\u2019t have every yearbook from the history of Chicago, but maybe your ancestor is in one of the ones that we do have, and there\u2019s only one way to find out! We love assisting researchers with their research, so come visit and follow the thrill of the chase with us!<\/p>\n

Additional Resources<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this blog post, CHM research center associate Annika Kohrt highlights resources in the Chicago History Museum\u2019s Abakanowicz Research Center that may be helpful in conducting genealogical research. Are you looking to unravel the stories of your Chicago ancestors? The Chicago History Museum\u2019s Abakanowicz Research Center (ARC) might be a helpful stop on your journey. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[12846,730,3734,7082,30310],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-320827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","tag-chicago","tag-family","tag-history","tag-museum","tag-researching"],"yoast_head":"\nResearching Family History at the Chicago History Museum - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=320827\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Researching Family History at the Chicago History Museum - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In this blog post, CHM research center associate Annika Kohrt highlights resources in the Chicago History Museum\u2019s Abakanowicz Research Center that may be helpful in conducting genealogical research. 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