What’s New

For decades, one of our own historical society members, Helen Sutt Lind, known to us as “cemetery granny” has painstakingly created literally dozens of books that are used on a daily basis. Her books have become the foundation of research by all of us here and countless researchers and authors. Helen spent years transcribing county records at the court house and local newspapers on microfilm in addition to tromping through current and forgotten cemeteries of the county auditing gravestones. Helen was often but not always accompanied by one of our other members, Charla Murphy, who worked jointly with Helen on a number of projects.

Helen has graciously passed her trove of book master copies to the historical society so that her years of research can continue to be republished into the future.  For that, we can’t thank Helen enough. A list of Helen’s books now in the possession of and sold by the historical society that were recently added are as follows and don’t include books that Helen had previously allowed us the permissions to. All are available for purchase through the museum book store. (more…)

The Williamson County Historical Society recently received permissions to reproduce the book “The History of the Village of Crainville” which was no longer in print and was only originally available in very limited quantities. The book has been reproduced and thanks to one of the original contributors a number of photographs have been added as well as an exhaustive index. The book is available through the museum book store and sells for $15.

An index was also created for the book “1965 Johnston City Homecoming Souvenir Program.” This book contains a history of Johnston City from its beginning up through 1965. The index contains over 1,500 references to places and peoples names. Both the Crainville and Johnston City book indexes have been added to our  Master Local History Index.

We have recently added indexing from two sources. The first source is the History of the Village of Crainville which contains a concise early history of the Village and some lineage of the Crain family responsible for its beginnings. This indexing was added to our Master Local History Index.

The second source added is a partial accounting of Williamson County Birth Record Book 15 covering births that occurred from June 1923 through May 1924. This indexing was added to our Misc. County Records Index.

Both indexes can be found under the Records tab from our main menu.

WSIL TV reporter Brooke Schlyer featured our historical society on Wednesday morning, July 7th, 2021. WCHS President, Sam Lattuca and WCHS coordinator/curator Sharon Vansaghi were on hand at the museum at 4:30 A.M. in order to accommodate the news report related to our recent reopening after having been closed for over a year due to the pandemic. The main features were work that had been done on new and reworked displays accomplished during the shutdown. Brooke ran live broadcasts with Sam and Sharon at 5, 5:30, 6 and 6:30 and put together some recorded interviews for programming that aired in evening broadcasts. The link below will take you to the Channel 3 live airings.

Visitors welcomed back to renovations, new exhibits (wsiltv.com)

 

After having been closed to the public since March 2020, the Williamson County Historical Society Museum and Library at 105 S. Van Buren St. in Marion will reopen to the public on Wednesday, June 23^rd, 2021. Before the pandemic the museum/library was able to be open six days a week but due to a loss of volunteers over the pandemic, the museum will begin by being open four days a week from Wednesday through Saturday, 9:30 A.M. till 3:00 P.M. Masks will only be required for those who are not fully vaccinated and groups will be held temporarily to a maximum of six people. (more…)

A soft opening of the WCHS museum and library was held on June 16^th and 17^th with invitations sent out to city, county and state officials as well as school and library personnel to come and check out the resources of our facility. This event was held to make local organizations and politicians aware of the vast resources the museum has to offer before completely opening to the public.

Some of those who visited the museum during the soft opening were State Representative Dave Severin, County Sheriff Bennie Vick, County commissioners Tim Atkisson and Jim Marlo, Carterville author/historian Jennifer Spence, and the Marion Carnegie Library was represented by Kelley McMullen and Loretta Broomfield.

The museum is set to reopen to the public four days a week from Wednesday through Saturday starting on Wednesday June 23rd from 9:30 to 3:00 P.M.

The Marion Garden Club presented the historical society with a check for $150 on Monday, the 7^th, 2021. The garden club has supported the historical society every year for a long time with a yearly donation and the planting of two large planters that sit in front of the museum. Shown presenting the check is Garden Club president, Debbie Lattuca to Historical Society president, Sam Lattuca. Garden club members present were Sandy Long, Sheila Dingrando, Connie Hayes and Linda Minnis was the photographer. The museum will be reopening to the public at first on a four day a week basis starting on June 23^th.

Birth Records of Williamson County, Illinois, Book One (1877-1883) transcribed by Dorothy Boyd  (2,469 entries)

Williamson County, Illinois Birth Records 1877-1879 Volume 1 by Mary Jo Moore (3,126 entries)

Williamson County, Illinois Birth Records 1879-1881 Volume 2 by Mary Jo Moore (2,767 entries)

Apparently, the first attempt to record births in the state of Illinois occurred in 1877, however I am reasonably sure that many births were never recorded during this period.

The three books recently added are transcripts from the Williamson County birth book 1 that got registered. The birth records are handwritten and hard to read. Information found in the birth records are supposed to contain, but don’t always have the name, birth date, place of birth, residence and nationality of the parents, as well as the names of the parents, the fathers occupation, number of children born to the mother and the name of the person who attended the birth. Unfortunately many of the records are incomplete and often the child was yet to be named and only has the sex of the child, date of birth and parent’s names to go by which is better than nothing.

These books are duplicates of each other for the same period, Moore’s books contains indexing to each separate name and the Boyd book contains the parents indexed on the same line as the child. Since the books are hard to read, having two versions of the same information could be a good thing since there might be a better chance of identifying the person you are looking for.

The indexing for these books has been placed in the Misc. County Records Index which can be found under the Records tab.

The Gallatin County Historical Society visited our museum and library on Saturday, May 22nd, 2021. Ten members of the society were on hand to tour the museum including a few recently reworked exhibits and rooms. Members of the Gallatin County society were Laura Benson-Henson, Bruce and Tamara Buddick, Terry Butts, Cindy Decker, Diane Patrick and  Christy and Wayne Short. The tour of the museum was arranged by John Wohlwend of Marion who is a member of both Gallatin and Williamson County. Tours were given by WCHS President, Sam Lattuca and Curator/Coordinator, Sharon Vansaghi. 

While the museum remains mostly closed to the public at the moment due to the pandemic it will be reopening to the public in some fashion during the month of June.

In order to ease back into a full time museum/library again during the pandemic, we will be allowing visitors who want to do research in our library on Saturdays only and by appointment only. Of course, masks are required as well as social distancing. 

To make an appointment, call 618-997-5863 or email us at wchsmail@yahoo.com