White County, Illinois A Part of the ILGenWeb Project

Hi, I'm Cindy Birk Conley, from Carmi, Illinois. I took over as county co-ordinator in February, 2000, following Laurel Crook. She did a great job getting the site in shape, and I made few changes. My personal site is  Cindy Birk Conley's Home Page which has several resources for White County and particularly my beloved Enfield.  Only one of my grandparents, Frank Alma Savage, was born in White County, while his wife Harriet Lockwood moved to Illinois from Warrick County, IN--both of my father's parents were from Daviess Co. KY so I have interests in all three states. As a CPA, a board member of the Historical Society, and active in other local organizations,  I never seem to have much time for research, but  volunteers from the White County Historical Society will do work for you at a reasonable cost, and the funds will be used to expand the library and its services. I don't mind geographical questions, if you are looking for a current or historic community, church, cemetery, or school in the county, or questions about my families. In August 2012 I moved this site to a new server, but am still working out the bugs!!

White County Board from Ancestry/Rootsweb The bios and obits and bible records that are on the GenWeb site also appear on the this board, and you can use the advanced search features to locate them.  A single board replaced the Genconnect System in June 2001. To post to the query page you must register with Ancestry, which is free. Contact me if you have questions or suggestions. You can search for obits or bios or queries only or do surname searches on the page. I got some interesting results when I searched for Enfield, Illinois or Springerton on all boards .
White County Queries, old and new This is the most important page of our site. Even if you don't have a question, leave a note on the families you are researching. Mary Smith Fay Library Catalog A-L Mary Smith Fay Library Catalog M-Z The first attempt of the genealogy library of the White County Historical Society to put information on line. Two large pages.	Carmi in 1875

Freefind index to my site Maybe I have enough information on my site to warrant a search engine. Give it a try! If you are serious about genealogy, please try a database program. Check out PAF (free) from the LDS Church or Rootsmagic (about $30), my favorite. I'm not getting paid for these links.
Notes from the White County Historical Society Column by Charlene Shields as appeared  in The Carmi Times  through September 2002. Charlene is one of the founders of the genealogy library. Many of these columns were published in a book during 2003.				Important Addresses and  Phone Numbers for White County White County Courthouse 301 E. Main Street, Carmi, IL 62821 County Clerk  618-382-7211 Circuit Clerk 618-382-2321 County Treasurer 618-382-8122 Carmi Public Library  618-382-5277
Genealogy Gems from the Mary Smith Fay Library Column by Barbara Hughes as appeared  in The Carmi Times in  2002 and 2003. There are only a couple of these columns.				Illinois State Genealogy Society Has some good information about cemeteries and such
Carmi 1928-1935 on YouTube, Part 1. My cousin Lisa called me several years ago to see if I wanted to buy cans of film from the Williams estate. What a treasure.				Carmi 1928-1935 on YouTube, Part 2. My thanks to Mark and Robin Johnson for getting the out-of-print DVD online.
White County Biographies Biographies of prominent White Co. residents.				Genealogy Society of White County, Illinois Publisher of Roots and Branches newsletter PO Box 142 Carmi IL 62821
White County Communities Histories of early townships of White County. See Charlene's columns for Emma township and more.				White County Historical Society and Mary Smith Fay Genealogy Library  I maintain this site for now. P.O. Box 121, 203 N. Church St, Carmi, IL 62821-0121 618-382-8425 email w.c.h.s-genealogy@hotmail.com (Old Carnegie Library, open Tuesday thru Friday, 11:30 am to 4:30 pm)
White County History An overview from 1809 to 2000				White County and State of Illinois Online Links and Resources Includes hours and addresses of area libraries. I THINK I HAVE THE LINKS UP TO DATE AS OF JUNE 2011,
Images of White County and Postcards of White County Pictures of places and people of White Co.
White County Obituaries Obituaries of White County citizens. I have more to add, but many recent ones can be found from other links on this site.				Southeastern Illinois Convention and Tourism Bureau. Has calendar of events and other listings; great if you are planning to make a research trip. As of 7/1/11 White County is part of  http://www.thetourismbureau.org/ which covers southern Illinois from the Wabash to the Mississippi.
White County Queries Read and post White County Queries using Ancestry				The Carmi Times If you are serious about your White County research you should subscribe to the Weekly Times for about $30 per year and keep up on local news. Details on their site. There is an online edition as well.
White County References A list of lookup volunteers and resources available Volunteers are always needed! These are somewhat outdated.				White County Maps A few maps of the county and the historic sites of downtown Carmi
White County Researchers Personal home pages of White County researchers. This page doesn't have many valid links as of June 2011.				URLs for Surrounding Counties Edwards , Gallatin, Hamilton, Saline, Wayne
White County Wills Wills and probate records of White County residents				ILWHITE-L The Rootsweb White Co. Email Discussion List To subscribe, send a message to ILWHITE-L-request@rootsweb.com with "subscribe" (no quotes) in the body of the message.
Civil War Veterans Database of Civil War Veterans sponsored by the State of Illinois--There are several databases available				Early Illinois Marriages Database of marriages sponsored by the Secretary of State's office.
White County Pensioners of 1883, transcribed by Dianna Williams of the Wayne County ILGenweb. The 5 volume listing of those receiving or applying for pensions helped me track my gggrandfather's widow to Texas, where she remarried for a time and lived with an adult daughter and her husband near a military base. Pension applications are worth the money.
White County Tips An outline for researching families in White County.				White County Personalities Some notes about prominent residents of the last 175 years. This page is a bit rough and there are many omissions of large families.
White County Probate Indexes 1822-44and 1843-1847Our thanks to Carol Cyrus!! .				White County Archives Pretty good stuff, but we could use more. The 1820 census is here, which never got proofread. Part of 1850 is on the census project. I'm not sure where this is right now.
Key Ingredients exhibit at the White County Historical Society. The Smithsonian came to Carmi in 2005, and returned in 2010 with New Harmonies.				Bible records for your White County ancestors .A Bible is an excellent source for finding out about your elusive great-great-grandmother when records were not kept for many females. Please send me your entries from your family Bible; it does not matter how big or small.
enfieldmemories.com Lots of good information about Enfield of today and yesterday.				http://www.carmi.white.k12.il.us/alumni.html This page has links to yearbook photos of Carmi and Crossville alumni. It did, at least. Now all I see is a list of email addys.
Revolutionary Soldiers of Southeastern Illinois My latest project, as I am DAR regent for 2011 to 2013. Most of this info comes from Kim Torp of Genealogytrails. At the library in Carmi they have copied her transcription for other researchers.				Wabash Chapter NSDAR  A small site for the DAR chapter which represents White and Wayne counties, and has members who descended from local people. If you like genealogy check out DAR, SAR, Colonial Dames, 1812, and other lineage societes as a way to honor your ancestors, register your history, and work on patriotic activities.
Every name index to 1883 White County History  Our thanks to Cathy O'Connor for doing this index! You can find the book in many libraries and from interlibrary loan. The historical society has run out of reprints for sale. The Wayne County book is indexed, too, and the text has been digitized by what I think is the state library. Do a search if you are interested. I have the 1880s History of Daviess Co, KY on a CD, and find it to be very useful.				Many folks have asked about a page on cemeteries. Back in the 1950s, a group read all the county cemeteries and published two books. A few cemeteries were re-read in 1986 by Ed Schuster, and he published the information. Around 2000 the historical society did several cemeteries, but only two townships were published before the project was put on the back burner. I would be happy to do look ups, but feel the future of cemetery research is at http://www.findagrave.com/index.html. Some local cemeteries have many listings, others almost none.
Genealogy Trails for White County. Some good things, especially military.				White County Probate records from FamilySearch, the LDS site. It looks like slow going with lots of images, but good information. There's lots to see on FamilySearch, but do be careful of undocumented family trees.
White County Archives--has many recent obituaries http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/ILWHITE				Lick Creek Church 1820--2002 A page for a torn down church. Many disbanding congregations would rather raze a building than have it vandalized
Campbell Funeral Home has obituaries online.				Kittinger-Fair and Stendeback Funeral Home has obituaries online.
The Enfield Horror One of a number of YouTube vidoes about the 1973 sighting of a Big Foot type monster. You'd be surprised how many emails I have gotten about the monster over the years. I have thought the creature came from ingesting too much of what the Irish call "the creature".				Grayville Paddlefest A pretty good view of the Wabash from 2008 from YouTube. The paddlefest just seemed to be building and was discontinued. There are other videos about Grayville and the rest of the county on YouTube, several of the storms and flooding in 2011.
My house in 1972, from the IHPA listing of all National Register eligible properties.				Follow us on Facebook

Copyright © by Laurel Crook  and Cindy Birk Conley, all rights reserved. For personal use only. Commercial use of the information contained in these pages is strictly prohibited without prior permission. If copied, this copyright notice must appear with the information.