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Cook County Genealogy

The Genealogy Unit of the Cook County Clerk's Bureau of Vital Records provides non-certified versions of birth, death and marriage records for the purpose of genealogical research. Records found on this site are for Chicago and Cook County dating back to 1872.

This historical record database is an exciting endeavor for the Clerk’s office. More than 6 million of the 8 million genealogy records are already searchable. And we will continue to add more as we bring our database up to date.

The state of Illinois requires that vital records are filed with county clerks. However, it is possible that a birth, death or marriage occurred and no official record was filed with the county clerk.

There are eight million genealogy records in the Cook County Bureau of Vital Records. Records are added to the database frequently. If your record does not appear, check back again.

Please note, the Chicago Fire of October 8, 1871 destroyed all Cook County vital records prior to that date. After some rebuilding, record keeping resumed in 1872.

Under Illinois law, genealogical vital records are defined as:

• Birth certificates that are 75 years or older (before today's date in 1933);
• Marriage certificates that are 50 years or older (before today's date in 1958);
• Death certificates that are 20 years or older (before today's date in 1988).

Thank you to the Illinois State Archives and the Illinois State Genealogical Society for their assistance.

Unable to Find What You Are Looking For?

Try Using Alternate Spellings.

If you are unable to locate a document by the full spelling of a last name, please try using alternate spellings. Because some records were handwritten in cursive, the spelling of a name sometimes could be interpreted several ways. Try switching around the vowels. For example, an "A" may be an "O" or "U". Consonants may also take a different appearances. An "L" could be an "F", "S" or "T". The letters "PH" could be an "F".

Try Using the Soundex Code

The Soundex Code indexes names by sound as pronounced in English. Soundex can help genealogists by indentifying spelling variations for a given surname (last name). Surnames that sound the same but are spelled differently, such as REED/REID and SMITH/SMITHE, have the same code and are filed together.

Here’s how it works:

• Each code consists of a letter and three numbers, such as W235.
• The letter is always the first letter of the surname and the numbers encode the remaining consonants.
• Zeroes are added at the end if necessary to produce a four-character code. Additional letters are disregarded.

Here are a few examples:

• Weston is coded W235 (W, followed by 2 for the S, 3 for the T, and 5 for the N. The vowels are ignored.)
• Dever is coded D160 (D, followed by 1 for the V, 6 for the R, and 0 because there are no other consonants.)

Disregard the letters A, E, I, O, U, H, W, and Y.

There are a few exceptions to this code.

• If a surname has any double letters, such as WiLLiams, only the first should be counted.
• If a surname has at least two different letters side-by-side that are assigned the same code number, such as JaCKSon, they should be treated as one letter.
• Surnames with prefixes – Van, De, Con, for example – may be coded with or without the prefix. Try both ways.
• If a vowel separates two consonants that have the same code number, the consonant to the right of the vowel is coded.

Now that you've figured out your name's Soundex code, simply enter the code into the "Last Name" field on the search page.

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