Finding Your Chicago Ancestors, A Beginner's Guide to Family History in the City and Cook County; by Grace DuMelle; 333 pp; Softcover; 2005; 5.5 x 8.5; ISBN: 1-893121-25-9; Item #: LCP256

For almost 175 years, a great metropolis on the shores of a freshwater sea has sent a siren call to immigrants internal and external, giving most Americans some kind of link to the City of Big Shoulders. Whether your people came west from New England in the early days of settlement, or north from Mississippi in the Great Migration; whether they sailed from Sweden and Sicily, or flew from Budapest and Prague; whether they settled here permanently or temporarily, this easy-to-use reference guide will help you document them.

Family historian Grace DuMelle provides the means to trace your Chicago connections like a pro. She shows you not just what to research, but how to research. Without wading through lots of preliminaries, choose any of the self-contained chapters that focus on the questions beginners most want answered and jump right in!

• Where do I start?
• When and where was my ancestor born?
• When did my ancestor come to America?
• What did my ancestor do for a living?
• Where did my ancestor live?
• Where is my ancestor buried?

Other chapters cover the nuts and bolts of the mechanics that are the key to making your family's past come alive, with highlights summarizing important points:

• Examples of documents such as death certificates, church registers and U.S. census entries
• Chicago-area research facilities: what they have and how to access it
• Researching using newspapers, machines and catalogs
• Sources for specific ethnic research
• Sources for long-distance research

In Finding Your Chicago Ancestors, you will not only better understand your and your family's history, but also your and your family's involvement in the history of a great American city.