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 it's always going to be behind the net!! During 2018 Rootsweb/Ancestry had so much hacking that all their freepages were taken off the net, including our White County Historical Society page. I am trying to move it here https://white.illinoisgenweb.org/ilwcohsindex.htm.


 


  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

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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

Something new for 2015, adding the 1972 Survey of Tri-State Architecture, done by the Junior Historical Societies of Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky. A few years later the entries in the book formed the basis of properties eligible to be placed on the National Register for Historic Places, or at least the Illinois entries were. This meant that in 1985 and 1986 efforts to ignore the James Robert Williams home in Carmi, better known as the Castle, were not going to be successful. While the Castle is safe, many other properties, including those in Calvin, Enfield and Grayville have been lost to fire or neglect.

These are large PDF files: Part 1, and Part 2. The book is about 40 pages.

       graveyard

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. The LDS Church no longer supports PAF, their free program. I have used Rootsmagic (about $30), my favorite, for many years. It recently added a tablet or smartphone app.



My new favorite website http://whiteil.mygisonline.com/ Everything you ever wanted to know about property in White County, Illinois.
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
 

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.

 

    
http://www.whitecounty-il.gov/home.aspx County government site.
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.
     Tourism Bureau of IllinoiSouth https://www.illinoisouth.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
Illinois is turning 200 years old December 3, 2018. Check us out. https://illinois200.com/
     URLs for Surrounding Counties
Edwards , Gallatin, Hamilton,
Saline, Wayne Not all of these work.
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-subscribe@rootsweb.com with "subscribe" (no quotes) in the body of the message. I'm not sure I know how to update the link properly in 2018.

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. Dianna was a great help to me before her death at the end of 2016.



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 1822-44 and 1843-1847 Our 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.


Cook Funeral Chapel Operates funeral homes in Carmi, Crossville and Grayville, the latter two previously owned by the Sturm family.

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.


https://www.facebook.com/CarmiILL/?fb_dtsg_ag=AdxfevBniutzjAvENtzoDWazA55k4Ku5vPDu8B9NNEMoCg%3AAdxUYaxZ6rIXA6DX7YavyrCnQWhrHoR16GgCNvx0A-Yt0w The White County GenWeb Page on facebook. Please follow us, as social media is supposed to be the future.

Revolutionary Soldiers of Southeastern Illinois I was DAR regent for 2011 to 2013. At the library in Carmi they have copied Kim Torp's transcription from Genealogytrails for other researchers. I found the same information on ancestry.com, and compared it to current DAR records.


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. You may need an account to see anything on this page.

White County Archives--has many recent obituaries and postings https://lists.rootsweb.com/hyperkitty/list/ilwhite@rootsweb.com/thread/6824564/


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, with chapels in Carmi and Norris City.



Stendeback Funeral Home has obituaries online. Has funeral homes in Carmi and Enfield, and had one in Norris City. Also owns a facility in Mt. Vernon, IN.

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 houseMy house in 1972, from the IHPA listing of all National Register eligible properties. Probably too many changes since the fire in 1998 to get it listed.





https://www.facebook.com/illinoiswcohs/?ref=br_rs White County Historical Society facebook page. Pretty active, recently Barry Cleveland has been sending me articles from his archives. Really good stuff.








Thank you for visiting White County!

The Coordinator for the White County, Illinois US GenWeb page is
 Cindy Birk Conley
cbconly@midwest.net
Personal Web Page
home.midwest.net/~cbconly
Created by Laurel Crook, 05 Aug 1998

Updated 31 Aug 2018 by  Cindy Birk Conley


and
Lovingly created with a Mac! :-)
(updated with a PC!)

Pray for America and the victims of terrorism!

 

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.