Kane County is located in northern Illinois. It one of the “Collar counties”, on the western edge of the Chicago metropolitan area. Kane County was formed in 1836 from LaSalle County. It was named for Elias Kane, a United States Senator from Illinois and the first Secretary of State for Illinois.
Birth and death records have been
kept since 1878. Marriage records date
to the founding of the county. Land and
Probate Records also begin in 1836. Many
of the earlier vital and probate records have been digitized and are available
at FamilySearch.org. There were 2
courthouse fires, one in 1843 and one in 1890 which destroyed a small number of
records each time.
The county courthouse is located
in the county seat of Geneva and vital records may be obtained at https://www.kanecountyclerk.org/VitalRecords/Pages/Genealogy.aspx
. Some records may also be located at
the IRAD at Northern Illinois University.
There, in addition to vital records, one might find jail records and
naturalization records.
The Kane County Genealogical
Society may be found at http://www.kcgsillinois.org/. In addition, the Elgin Genealogical Society is a good resource. They are at www.elginroots.com. The Gail Borden
Library in Elgin has a good collection of area publications and microfilm. They can be found at https://gailborden.info/research/genealogy.
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Note: This was originally published in the "County Spotlight" column in the Illinois State Genealogical Society Newsletter (September 2021).
