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Category: News and Events

Created: Wednesday, 13 April 2016 15:24

Death certificates and burial records are just two of the many vital records we use while compiling our family histories. Sometime it can be a difficult process to locate them and then obtain a copy from the right source at a reasonable fee. The information contained in mortuary death records is often unobtainable anywhere else. 

A while back, the Hayner Genealogy & Local History Library was given numerous boxes of death and burial records (including copies of death certificates) for hundreds of people who had been buried by Burke’s Funeral Home in Alton, Illinois, between the years of 1956 and 1995. Unfortunately, we did not receive any records for 1961–1968. 

After many hours of hard work by staff and volunteers, these records have been organized and are ready for public use. A complete name index has been created and is now a part of our Illinois Room collection. This index can be used to quickly identify whether we have a file on a specific name. The book is titled Index of Burke’s Funeral Home Records, and the call number is IR 977.3865 IND.

If you find an ancestor’s name listed on the index, a staff member will retrieve the file for that name and copy any of the materials you need for your genealogy research. (Copy fees apply.) These donations of Burke’s Funeral Home records are only available at the Hayner Genealogy & Local History Library at the 401 State Street location.