StoryVault http://www.storyvault.com/

An interesting place to spend an evening, StoryVault http://www.storyvault.com/ "preserves your friends' or family's life-stories alongside other eyewitness accounts of remarkable events from around the world."

There's an easy interface for recording a webcam video (they recommend no more that 4 or 5 minutes), uploading it, linking it to a family tree you can add, and a simple way to invite other family members to view and add to the memories.

Also available are documentary-like videos including Mecca in 1885, a First Nations video (that looks it was made c1910), eyewitness stories of World War I and II -- all of it is fascinating.

Check out the Fox Valley Genealogy Society updated Local Names Index. Over 46,000 names of people who lived in Dupage, Kane, and Kendall counties have been collected from  local cemeteries, church records, newspapers, and historical documents. The index includes about 6500 names from Naperville newspapers dating from 1850 to 1943.

Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States

Containing 14 chapters and nearly 700 maps, the Atlas of the Historical Geography of the United States was first published in 1932. This wonderful resource, the product of the Digital Scholarship Lab, is available online at http://dsl.richmond.edu/historicalatlas

Chapters include

• Population, 1790-1930
• Colleges, Universities, and Churches, 1775-1890
• Boundaries, 1607-1927
• Industries and Transportation, 1620-1931

There's a lot here, so be sure to set aside time to learn what the collection offers, then do your homework and make a research list to you can get the most from this wonderful resource.

Pre-Fire Marriages

The state of Illinois offers several databases that can be a significant help in your research. Since 1985, the Illinois State Genealogical Society (ISGS) has cooperated with the Illinois State Archives to create an index to Illinois marriages occurring prior to 1901.

My mother wanted to stay active in her retirement but was physically limited, so she spent her mornings transcribing the Kankakee county married records from oversized photocopies of the original books into a software application used to index the records. The database can be searched at https://www.ilsos.gov/departments/archives/databases/marriage.html

French Canadian settlers came to Kankakee County in 1834, after the federal government signed the Treaty of Camp Tippecanoe in 1832. The earliest marriage records for Kankakee are filled with surnames like Lambert, Brunnenier, LaMuret, and Jeannot. Over time, there was a decline in French surnames and an increase in Irish and German.

While the online Illinois marriages database provides only the names, date, location, and file numbers for a marriage, the original Kankakee books usually included residence, occupation, parents, and witnesses. Mom and I were fascinating by number of men living in Chicago who married wives in Kankakee county. Keeping in mind that many of these records are pre-1871, the Kankakee marriage records are a valuable resource to check if your ancestor was married before the Chicago Fire.

So take another look at the Illinois marriage database. Be VERY creative with surname spelling and you may track down your illusive pre-Fire ancestors.