About Membership

Members receive the Member eNews, and the SCCGS Quarterly (in digital format). A mailed option only for the Quarterly is available for an additional fee; send in free queries to be published on its pages. ♦♦ Option to purchase at reduced price: St. Clair Research and Resources: A Genealogist’s Guide ♦♦ Surnames you are researching are posted online to “Let’s Collaborate” (submit via the member site. SCCGS facilitates contact to protect your privacy). ♦♦ Members’ website access for individuals (sorry, institutions and societies do not have access).

Member website includes these resources

Consider joining SCCGS for the remainder of the year or donate to help support our endeavors.

• March 2023 (updated): Birth abstracts (1878–1921, name and birthdate), an index to certificates filed at the courthouse
• January 2023: Mount Hope Cemetery Lot Books. With these books the entire holdings for Mt. Hope Cemetery records acquired by SCCGS are now online for Members.
• “Belleville Newspaper Abstracts “WPA file 1840–1940.” Digital documents. Locally known as the WPA newspaper card file, abstracts from articles in Belleville Newspapers about businesses, churches, civil leaders, clubs, court cases, farmers, military, pioneers, residents, and many other topics are the gateway to ancestral and historically significant research. The Society has digitized nearly 99,000 cards for the benefit of its Members and created an index to all names and businesses shown on those cards! (live 2 May 2022).
  • 3 August 2022: a cross-reference to the “Belleville Newspaper Abstracts (WPA file) 1840–1940.” This index adds 900,000 names found within the abstracted information on each WPA card, i.e., all associates, businesses,  clubs, locations, occupations, relatives, and more. We are delighted to share this with our members – annual dues supports these special projects.
• Mount Hope Cemetery Lot Cards and Sexton’s books (live June–December 2022). An index to burials. Consider joining SCCGS for the remainder of the year to help support our endeavors.

Birth, marriage, death – vital records

• Birth abstracts (1878–1921, name and birthdate), an index to certificates filed at the courthouse. Know before you order a copy of the original from the courthouse.
• Marriages 1845-1869 published by Buecher
• Marriages – from the Millstadt Enterprise 1950–1997
• Death Records of the St. Clair County Poor Farm and Hospital 1854-1916 compiled by Bechtoldt, et al. (free book)
• Death and Stillbirth certificates recorded at the courthouse 1877-1917 Name, date of death, date filed, certificate number. Know before you order a copy of the original from the courthouse. (updated May 2024)

Court

• Declarations and naturalizations filed in County Court (1864-1906)
• Index to St. Clair County, Illinois Probated and Non-probated Wills 1772 – 1964 (free book)
• Index to probate case files (estates) 1772-1960s.

News

• Digital images of the Belleville-News Democrat 1901-2002 – remote access.
• 400 family-focused obituaries of St. Clair countians with digital image
• 1890 business and personal tidbits from the newspaper
• 1914 Biography and Business index to the Post und Zeitung
• 1926 Daily Advocate news abstracts (in addition to vital stats on our public website)
• 1941 Farm Families Competition with news article

Other resources

• 1870 Historical Review of Belleville
• Bible records
• Early Family Files — compiled data on 125 St. Clair County families with roots principally along the eastern seaboard, Kentucky, and Tennessee before 1850.
• Index to International Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) applications, member rosters, and visitor registers (Belleville, West Belleville, and Millstadt).
• St. Clair County Medical Society applications 1920-1957.
• St. John Orphanage history
• St. Peter’s Catholic Church (Belleville), burials 1859-1909
• The Classroom
  • Builds upon chapters in St Clair Research and Resources: A Genealogist’s Guide, introduces new resources as these become available.
  • Virtual presentations to the most recent lectures.
• Quarterlies on the member site are marked with a red asterisk on this form and the Table of Contents tab on the About Membership webpage indicates which issues are there as well.

All content on the Society websites is Board approved.

All members of the St. Clair County Genealogical Society are asked to follow this time-honored Code of Ethics:

In order to protect the integrity of public records and library materials, I am ethically bound and hereby agree:

1. That I will treat with the greatest of care and respect all public records and library materials which may be made available for my use.
2. That I will speak with courtesy to all employees of a vital records office, or of a public library, when requesting to see any vital record or library materials, and that when finished with such a record or material, I shall express my thanks to the person attending to my requests.
3. That I will not tear, erase, mark or remove any public record or library book, and will refrain from mutilating, defacing or otherwise destroying any part of such public record or library material.
4. That when finished viewing any public record or library material, I will return it to the proper or designated place.

Members shall reimburse the Society for postage it paid for returned regular publications that are requested to be remailed, plus the cost of remailing.

• The Quarterly is posted on the member website. If you paid to receive printed issues, it will be held for one month and then returned to the general circulation (effective April 2014; updated 15 August 2022).

Reasons for this decision: The Post Office regulations.

To change your mailing address from the member website, click Account on the main menu tab there, or click Contact on the main menu above.