Williamson County Illinois Historical Society

A recent quest to index 74 large Mortgage record books is moving along. So far we haven’t really discovered a rhyme or reason for the books as far as content goes. One would think they would only contain mortgage records but so far they include the following. Real estate and chattel (property) mortgages, marriage and business agreements, lease agreements, mineral rights, retail contracts, powers of attorney, last will and testaments and more. So far they appear to range in date from the 1850’s to about 1891. The last block indexed were record books I,J,K & L.

The Mortgage record books can be found under the Records tab and then Library resource indexes or here at this link.  Mortgage Record Books Index.

We have just recently set about indexing a set of Mortgage Record books that are here at the museum. There are 74 of these very large county mortgage record books and each book contains approximately 1,000 to 1,200 references. These records document a number of transactions, the purchase of property, promissory notes using property as collateral, the transfer of ownership of property and even some unusual agreements like an early form of marriage agreements and partnerships. These records might possibly give a person some insight into their early family by finding out when property was purchased or transferred and perhaps what kind of property they owned and a lot more.  It takes about 20 hours to index each book and the indexes will be released after the completion of every four books. The first set of four book indexes can be viewed in the Master Mortgage Books index and will be stored under the Records tab, then Library Resource Indexes.

729 digital obituaries covering deaths that occurred in our county during 2021 along with 216 paper obits and funeral cards donated to us over the last year that were put in our Card Catalog obit files have been added to our Master Obituary Index on our website. Most of the funeral cards were donated to us by one individual and they are mostly all Italian individuals buried in San Carlo Cemetery in Herrin over the period of 1930 through the 1960’s.

View the new funeral card and obit additions here.