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Collection Descriptions

Data in ChicagoAncestors is organized into Collections and Topics. Collections are groups of items with a similar theme or source, i.e. Yearbook Collection. A Topic is the main subject of an item, i.e. education, transportation, or religious institution. Descriptions of the Collections are shown below.

American Indian Chicago
Chicago sites and events significant in the lives of American Indians in the Chicagoland area.

American Terra Cotta Company Photographs
The American Terra Cotta Company was founded in 1881 as a drain tile factory by W. D. Gates. In 1888, the company took the name American Terra Cotta Company and established a plant near Crystal Lake, Illinois, outside of Chicago. The Northwest Architectural Archives at the University of Minnesota holds the American Terra Cotta Company Papers (1905-1964). Over 500 images from this collection are available in an online image database. ChicagoAncestors provides links to photos of installed terra cotta pieces in Chicago.

Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Photographs
Photographs from the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy (CB&Q) archives at the Newberry. The archives document the nineteenth and early twentieth century operations of the Burlington and its component roads. Additional images from this collection can be found in Daily Life Along the Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad.

Cemeteries
This Collection will ultimately map the cemeteries in and around Chicago. Links to the each cemetery's website and other sites containing listings, transcriptions and photos will be included. Print materials will also be cited.

Chicago Genealogical Society Pioneers
The Chicago Genealogical Society will issue ancestor certificates to direct descendants of early residents of Chicago or Cook County. There are two categories of Certificates: (1) Pioneer – an ancestor who settled in Chicago or Cook County from the city’s founding in 1833 through October 8, 1871 (Great Chicago Fire), and (2) Rebuilder – an ancestor who settled in Chicago or Cook County from October 9, 1871 through April 30, 1893 (World’s Columbian Exposition).

Chicago Genealogist
The Chicago Genealogist is the quarterly publication of the Chicago Genealogical Society. This Collection cites articles that can be mapped to a particular location, such as a church, school, business or family residence or to an event in Chicago history. Issues from 1969 to 2007 are available online.

Chicago History Magazine
Chicago History is the magazine of the Chicago History Museum. This Collection cites articles that can be mapped to a particular location, such as a church, school, business or family residence or to an event in Chicago history.

ChicagoPC Postcards
This Collection links to images on ChicagoPC, a Chicago postcard and history website. Their purpose is to be an archive of images of historic Chicago buildings, featuring primarily postcard views and a few blotters and early illustrated billheads.

Chicago Tribute Markers of Distinction
This Collection contains links to Chicago Tribute's Markers of Distinction website. The project is a collaboration between the Chicago Cultural Center Foundation, the Chicago Tribune Foundation, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The markers commemorate notable Chicagoans by marking the places where they lived or worked.

City 2000
Links to a few of the photographs in City 2000, the University of Illinois at Chicago digital collection. On a quest to create a lasting record of life in Chicago in the Year 2000, more than 200 photographers spent 366 days canvassing the city and chronicling its people, places and personality. To view all the images from a particular community, see the community area guides.

Cushman Photographs
The Charles W. Cushman Collection of photographs is a digital archive from Indiana University. ChicagoAncestors links to selected images from the digital collection. For more information about Cushman and to see more images, visit the Indiana University Cushman Collection.

Digital Past
This Collection maps images of Chicago restaurants within the Digital Past Collection, originally hosted by the North Suburban Library System. It is now part of the Postcards - Chicago Collection in the Illinois Digital Archives. Digital Past which offers a treasure trove of photographs, postcards, diaries, oral histories, documents, movies, interpretive exhibits, and other historical materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural venues throughout Illinois.

Digitized Books
Information from digitized books that describes locations in Chicago. Many items are culled from:

Eastern Religions
Locations for houses of worship for various Eastern religions.

Episcopalian Churches
Locations of churches and information about their records. This Collection is based on the Newberry's "Guide to Chicago Church and Synagogue Records".

Evangelical Churches
Locations of churches and information about their records. This Collection is based on the Newberry's "Guide to Chicago Church and Synagogue Records".

Great Houses of Chicago
This Collection plots the houses described in Great Houses of Chicago, 1871-1921 by Susan S. Benjamin and Stuart Earl Cohen (Urban domestic architecture series. New York: Acanthus Press, 2008).

Three dozen vintage mansions - including 28 landmarks - are examined in the book. The publication, loaded with hundreds of photographs, visits residences on such city streets as Astor, Prairie, Lake Shore Drive, Drexel, Lakeview, Greenwood and Woodlawn. Also included are brief biographies of 25 architects and their firms.

Historic American Buildings Survey
The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) began during the Great Depression in December 1933, when Charles E. Peterson of the National Park Service submitted a proposal for 1,000 out-of-work architects to spend ten weeks documenting "America's antique buildings." The collection is among the largest and most heavily used in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress and is available online at Historic American Buildings Survey.

Homicide in Chicago
The data in the Homicide in Chicago Collection is drawn from a database created by the Chicago Historical Homicide Project at the Northwestern University School of Law. This database indexes original homicide case files of the Chicago Police Department, now held by the Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD) at Northeastern Illinois University. Librarians and interns at the Newberry geocoded this data for inclusion in ChicagoAncestors. Our Collection includes homicides for 1871 -1920 (lacking 1911 and 1918). The mapping of many pre-1910 cases is approximate; they are plotted on the correct city block, but may not be exactly plotted on the correct parcel of land.

In some cases, the records were corrected or supplemented with information from the Chicago Tribune or Chicago Daily News. In many instances, cases from the Northwestern University database were not included because they lacked adequate geographical description. Researchers will find additional cases and alternative search options by visiting the Homicide in Chicago website.

Jazz Age Chicago
This Collection includes brief summaries of information taken from the now defunct website chicago.urban-history.org. This site, created by Scott Newman, explored the everyday social and cultural experiences of Chicagoans during the early twentieth Century. Although the website has been inaccessible since 2012, it has been archived by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Lutheran Churches
The description of Lutheran churches in this Collection is based partially upon Lutheran Churches of Chicago - A Genealogical Guide created by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Archives. Newberry researchers supplemented the information in the ELCA guide with research in Chicago city directories and the Chicago Tribune. Many of the records in this Collection link to the ELCA guide, as well as church records and church histories held by the Newberry.

Methodist Churches
Locations of churches and information about their records. This Collection is based on the Newberry "Guide to Chicago Church and Synagogue Records".

Midwest Manuscript Collection
In the 1950s, the Newberry began to collect modern manuscripts, a group of original documents relevent to the history and culture of the Midwest in the 19th and 20th centuries. These holdings now number 800 separate manuscript collections.

New York Public Library Images
This Collection consists of links to images in the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery . Chicago images in the collection include stereoscopic images, postcards, book illustrations and ephemera. The collection includes a considerable amount of material on African-Americans in Chicago from the collection of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Newsletter Collection
This Collection cites articles from newsletters published by local organizations that can be mapped to a particular location, such as a church, school, business or family residence. Newsletters include those from organizations such as the Northwest Chicago Historical Society and the Rogers Park/West Ridge Historical Society.

Other Christian Churches
Locations of churches and information about their records. This Collection is based on the Newberry's "Guide to Chicago Church and Synagogue Records".

Polish Chicago
This Collection primarily covers the locations of Polish Women's Alliance groups. The Newberry holds the Polish Women's Alliance of America Records, 1898- ca. 1979. PWAA is national fraternal organization for Polish-American women headquartered in Park Ridge, Illinois. It provided insurance and other financial services for its members. The records include constitutions and bylaws, insurance applications, indexes and rosters, loan records and other materials providing individual genealogical information for Polish-American women.

Presbyterian Churches
Locations of churches and information about their records. This Collection is based on the Newberry's "Guide to Chicago Church and Synagogue Records".

Public Housing
This Collection shows the location of many current and historical public housing sites around the city. A bibliography of articles about each development is included.

Pullman Collection
This Collection was established in conjunction with the summer 2011 workshop "Pullman: Labor, Race, and the Urban Landscape in a Company Town" presented by the Newberry Dr. William M. Scholl Center for American History and Culture. Images are taken from the Newberry's collections.

Roman Catholic Churches
This guide to historical locations of Chicago Catholic Churches was compiled by librarians at the Newberry. The entries link to church histories held by the Newberry and microfilmed church records held by the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Currently, the guide only lists churches with records or histories at these two institutions. Most of the congregations in the guide were founded before 1915. The guide lists the founding ethnicity of the congregation.

Sources consulted include:

 Most Chicago Catholic Church records for 1833-1925 are available digitally.

Sloan Photographs
The Percy H. Sloan Collection of Photographs, available at the Newberry Library, consists of late nineteenth and early twentieth century photographs of Chicago and environs.  Included are views of the Chicago and suburban churches, civic buildings, commercial structures, and residences.  Sloan (1867-1950) was an art teacher and photographer, with a special interest in Chicago architecture. For more information, consult the collection finding aid.

Synagogue Collection
The Synagogue Collection was compiled by Newberry reference staff and interns. This is an ongoing project, starting with congregations founded before 1930.

Sources consulted include:

Yearbook Collection
This Collection includes Chicago high schools whose yearbooks are held by the Newberry or the Chicago History Museum. Links to the Newberry's on-line catalog, the Chicago History Museum's website and WorldCat are provided.

User Contributions
Information contributed by individual users of ChicagoAncestors.org.