Was Your Ancestor Working on the Illinois Central Railroad?

If you have Chicago or Illinois connections, keep an eye on Sharon Williams' Chicago history portal/blog, "Chicago History: The Journal of an Amateur Historian." I certainly will.

I haven't begun to explore this whole site -- her posts are delightfully eclectic -- but here's one juicy microhistorical/genealogical item 'way down on her blogroll equivalent (and something I should have known about long ago), the"Digitized Book of the Week" from the library of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Out of many curious postings here (further exploration and monitoring is a must), I found a year-old post on their digitized volumes of the Illinois Central Magazine (1914-1924) for employees.

In this digital treasure chest, the genealogical jewels are concentrated at the end of each issue under "Divisional News." The July 1914 news for the Illinois Division, Chicago District, includes a marriage announcement which fully names the bride but describes the groom only as "Brakeman McLaughlin." We also learn where dispatcher H. H. Weatherford just spent his vacation (Milwaukee), and where "trainmen's caller" John Wilson was about to spend his (Havana [Illinois]). Geo. Starkey secured a leave of absence from his unnamed job to visit a sick relative in Los Angeles. Good stuff. BTW, the IC magazine also profiled towns along its route.

Digitized newspapers in Champaign County, Illinois

If that headline doesn't make your heart go pit-a-pat, then you're reading the wrong blog! IMHO, digitized every-word-searchable newspaper images are the gold standard, and a gold mine. So it's a happy day when the Scout Report brings word of the Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Right now the collection offers the UIUC student newspaper, the Daily Illini, from 1916 to 1936, with 1936-1945 promised soon; and the local daily, the Urbana Daily Courier from 1916 to 1925, with 1902-1915 and 1926-1935 promised soon.

Here's some of the tech part:

The Illinois Digital Newspaper Collection (IDNC) is a project of the History, Philosophy and Newspaper Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library. The IDNC is a repository of digital facsimiles of historic Illinois newspapers. Using digital imaging technology, we have converted microfilmed newsprint into preservation quality image files. Equipped with Olive Software's Active Paper Archive platform, the IDNC delivers access versions of the image files through the customizable user-friendly interface. The interface allows users with internet connections to browse the newspapers by date or search by keyword across articles, advertisements and photo captions. Users can print, download, or e-mail individual articles. And it's free! We plan to add additional years of Illinois newspapers to the repository as funding becomes available.

The genealogy part doesn't need much explanation. I've already found a fascinating account of a second cousin on my mother's father's side (with the unhelpful surname Aye) who gave an impassioned speech to the local WCTU about alcoholism. He is described as a "newspaperman, and a former Methodist minister," and someone "whose experience for the past twelve years covers every phase of the evil, both from the inside and the outside." Hmmmm...