State Archives Places Civil War Data Base On-Line
SPRINGFIELD — Secretary of State and State Archivist Jesse White today announced that in his continuing effort to make state records available on the Internet, the Illinois State Archives recently placed information from its Illinois Civil War muster rolls on-line.
"Personal information about the more than 285,000 Illinois soldiers who served in the Civil War is now available through our website and this will be a boon to genealogists and historians looking for information," White said. "This information was taken mainly from large, bulky ledger books that in the past could only be accessed through research at the Norton Archives building in Springfield."
The database contains the names of soldiers who fought with Illinois units during the Civil War. It also shows the soldiers' age, physical description, hometown and service record, including the dates of entry into and discharge from service.
A researcher can conduct a search of the database based on a soldier's name, unit or residence. For years, the website has had an index of the names of the Illinois Civil War soldiers. However, the personal information about the soldiers was not available on the website until now.
White said the Archives department considered scanning the registers and placing the images on the Web but decided not to due to the size of the books involved. Instead, one volunteer, Fred Delap of Kansas, Illinois entered the information into a format that is usable to researchers on the Web.
"Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Delap as well as staff of the Archives and the Department of Information Technology, this important research tool is now available on-line," White said.
The new database can be accessed by visiting Secretary White's web site at www.cyberdriveillinois.com, clicking on departments, and then clicking on Illinois State Archives.
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