Research Request

Our Society covers southern Cook County (including the Roseland/Pullman area of Chicago) and eastern Will County. Although we have material from the United States and many foreign countries, our library’s collection is strongest in Cook and Will Counties, Illinois, and Lake County, Indiana.

To request research assistance:
please contact us via telephone (708-335-3340),
OR email us at research@ssghs.org
OR fill out the form below to discuss your research needs.

At the minimum we will need to know:

  • Name of person sought
  • Time period
  • Place
  • Information wanted or type of record to search
  • Sources that you have already checked and sources we should not check

** Research requests were delayed as the library was closed for several months due to COVID-19.
Any backlog may take weeks to complete. Thank you for your patience.**  

Research Assistance Form

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Cost
Volunteers will research in our library for $20 per hour, payable to SSGHS as a check or money order. This is to be paid before research is begun. You will be notified if our researcher finds that more information is available, but would require more time. You may then decide to authorize and pay for more research time.

Research requests not submitted online should be mailed to:

South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society
3000 W. 170th Place
Hazel Crest , IL 60429-1174

Please include your telephone and/or email address on any written request.

Obituaries

We have an obituary file that covers the time period 1970 to 2006 from a local newspaper. We will check this file for you if you provide the person’s name, approximate date of death and other identifying information. We will check the obituary file for $2.00 per name if you are a member or $5.00 per name if a non-member. To become a member, click here. Please include a self-addressed stamped business-size envelope.

Bishop/Cone Family Research

A collection of materials from the estate of Ira Bishop, cofounder of the society, were donated to SSGHS. Ira Bishop apparently based his work on the book The Descendants of John Bishop by William Whitney Cone and George Allen Root (published 1951 by John Guy Bishop, Nyack , New York ) and sought to add information to it. His method was to gather any reference to BISHOP and attempt to place it correctly. As a result, many folders of information exist on “unplaced” people. Researchers may use the collection at the society or may request research by mail. Research policy applies, as listed above. The collection includes:

  • Notebooks arranged by family (indexed)
  • Notebooks of “state” information- usually census extractions (un-indexed)
  • An index to the notebooks. Surnames other than Bishop were filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah (catalog card copy included)
  • Miscellaneous published books and booklets
  • The Cone Collection – used by Cone to write his book on the Bishop family. It includes family group sheets, correspondence, etc.
  • Folders containing information about:
    • Individuals surnamed Bishop (may or may not be included in the notebooks)
    • Other families, areas, correspondence (may or may not be included in the notebooks)
    • Both sets of folders are alphabetical and are not indexed

 

If you appreciate the fact that SSGHS exists and our volunteers work to have material such as cemetery records available, consider joining our society, or making a donation.  Our meetings and library are free and open to the public, and our newsletter may be viewed on our homepage.

A one-year membership includes a journal published twice a year, as well as discounts on most of our publications. To become a member, click here.

Donations are gladly accepted. To donate, click here.