Thanksgiving Day, 2019 marks the start of the 400th annual celebration of the landing of the Mayflower ship at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The celebration committee is working hard to look beyond the myth of Thanksgiving and colonial experiences to better tell the stories of the women of the Mayflower and the Native American tribes which lived…
Genealogy - Page 2 of 2
New Genealogy Resource
October is Family History Month, and the Library is celebrating by announcing the acquisition of My Heritage, a genealogy subscription database. Like Ancestry Library Edition and Ancestry.com, My Heritage has indexed census, vital records and family tree information. My Heritage,however, can be accessed at home by Mount Prospect Public Library cardholders! To find more clues…
Mount Prospect in the News
Events in Mount Prospect over the past 100 years have been documented by a few local newspapers; occasionally the Chicago Tribune would make brief mentions of the village, and the Daily Herald has been a source of Mount Prospect news since 1901. Two other newspapers were focused just on Mount Prospect. Both papers document life…
Cook County Marriage Applications
Cook County Clerk David Orr recently announced a new online feature allowing soon-to-be newlyweds the opportunity to fill out most of their marriage application license information online. Illinois law requires that before a couple marries, they must appear before the clerk in the county where they will be married to sign and complete their marriage…
DNA Tests and Your Family History
The holidays are a time when many families are together to share meals, stories, and special events. The memories which result can bring both pleasure and pain but form the core of our family histories along with vital documents and other official records. In recent years DNA tests for discovering family ethnic origins have become…
Tales Told by Found Photographs
The stories of our families are told through many forms of documents. Family photographs, however, are unique because they have visually captured moments in time that now only live as memories. A discarded photograph album lead a writer in New York to the story of black families that lived in the Crown Heights neighborhood of…
Civil War Images from The New York Times
The American Civil War occurred 150 years ago yet images of its battles remain provocative. They remind us of what war is really like and how its wounds can resonate for decades. The New York Times has created a video of still photos which are available in their historical archives.
Illinois Veterans History Project
The Illinois Veterans History Project was launched by Secretary of State Jesse White to create a permanent record of the names and stories of Illinois war veterans and civilians who served our state and country during war, so that their contributions will be not be forgotten. To participate in the Illinois Veterans History Project, veterans…
Who Are My Cousins?
The following article was recently noted in Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter. A term often found in genealogy is "removed," specifically when referring to family relationships. Indeed, almost everyone has heard of a "second cousin once removed," but many people cannot explain that relationship. Of course, a person might be more than once removed, as in…
