Williamson County Illinois Historical Society

Mortality schedules were taken alongside the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 U.S. Federal censuses. Mortality schedules list people who died during the previous 12 months. These schedules include persons who died between June 1st through May 31st in the year prior to the federal census. A typical mortality schedule will list the dead person’s name, age, sex, color (white, black, or mulatto), married or widowed, birthplace, month of death, occupation, and cause of death. Though part of the federal censuses, mortality schedules are separate from the population schedules.

In most cases, volunteers have matched these people into township and range within the county.

Indexes to the 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880 mortality schedules covering Williamson County have been added to our Master “Misc. County Records” Index on our website. The records can be found within the books of our society library. As always, inquiries can be made at the society or be emailing us at wchsmail@yahoo.com.

Beginning in the 1980’s the historical society started clipping obituaries from newspapers and saving them in a card catalog. Over the years the collection has grown to about 24,000 obits and funeral cards including quite a few from the turn of the century forward. In addition, due to the fact that newspapers started charging for obit space in the paper, it was noted that a number of families may choose not to publish a loved ones obit. The decision was made, starting in January 2015, to begin collecting obits directly from the funeral homes in Williamson County who publish them. This task was taken on by WCHS volunteer Betty Millard who has since that date collected over 2,500 obits. All of these obits have been currently indexed and are now available in a new index category called “Obituaries” and can be found on our websites “Library Resource Indexes page”.

Since many people carry the same or similar names, every attempt was made to include as much familial information such as maiden names, parents and spouses where listed to avoid similarities. Keep in mind that many obits are not always listed by proper names but rather familiar names. An example would be Robert and William often go by Bob and Bill so just keep that in mind.

Since a new “Obituaries” category was created we have moved two Obituary books that were previously filed in the “Newspaper” category into the “Obituaries” category in order to keep them together. The new file will now reflect app. 35,000 obit references.

As always, if an obit of interest is found, let us know at wchsmail@yahoo.com and we can email them to you.

The Williamson County Historical Society held their October membership meeting on Sunday, October 21^st, 2018. Society projects completed and planned were discussed and new additional artifacts recently donated to the museum were presented to the membership. Carterville resident, business owner and author, Steve Schlager was the guest speaker describing his recently published book entitled, “The Train that Vanished.” Schlager likes to create fictional stories woven around local historical events.

Member Violet Grisham presented the museum library with her newly printed books related to the history of the Third Baptist Church in Marion.

The membership approved new board members for the year 2019 that include Sam Lattuca, Peggy Coriasco, Helen Sutt Lind, Ursula Richey, Michael Spinks, George Mavigiano, Bob Jackson and Andrew McRoy.

The Williamson County Historical Society Honor Roll plaque was inscribed with a new name and presented to President Sam Lattuca by Helen Sutt Lind. Lattuca was cited for his dedication to improvements at the county museum building and his efforts to improve genealogical records available at the museum’s library and online over the last several years.