The hit PBS series Finding Your Roots shined a bright light on the world of genealogy when it made its debut in 2012. But you don’t have to be a celebrity backed by the inimitable Henry Louis Gates Jr. to uncover more about your family’s story.
Peoria County is endowed with a wealth of rich local resources to help you learn about your lineage. The Internet is awash with more.
Before starting your research, start with what your family already knows. Parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles may already have a trove of photographs, documents, and stories to help you trace back your family tree.
My late great-grandmother was born in 1917 and was a lifelong resident of Peoria’s South Side. The name “Peter Brady” has long been a vague part of our family lore (and not because of the 1970s sitcom sibling played by Christopher Knight).
This Peter Brady was in fact my great-grandmother’s grandfather. Born in 1868 in Peoria, he was the son of Irish immigrants. A tidal wave of Irish people emigrated to the United States in the mid-19th century to escape famine and economic hardships.
The family lived in Peoria’s old 6th Ward alongside many other families with Irish surnames like Sullivan, Monnahan, Toohey, and Driskell. Peoria’s status as the Whiskey Capitol of the World made it a magnet for those with skill sets like Peter’s father, who was listed as a foreman in one of Peoria’s many distilleries in the 1870 U.S. Census.
A photo of a Peoria electric streetcar, circa 1915. The author’s ancestor was superintendent of the Peoria Railway Company
A few decades later, the 1915 Peoria City Directory lists Peter as superintendent of the Peoria Railway Company, the electric trolley company that served Peoria from 1906-1946. He was married to Katherine (Hanna) Brady, whose branch of the family tree hid an unexpected story that wasn’t previously part of the family canon.
Cemeteries can be an important source of genealogical information. Like many Peorians, we have relatives interred at Springdale Cemetery, where more than 78,000 burials have taken place since 1857. Springdale offers extensive online resources, including a grave finder that allows for easily locating the burial plots of relatives.
Through this tool, we can locate not only the final resting places of Peter and Katherine Brady, but also her parents, Robert and Sarah Hanna.
I am lucky that a brief biographical sketch of Robert Hanna appears in the 1890 book Portrait and Biographical Album of Peoria County. He was born in what is today Braxton County, West Va., in 1839. His family moved out west to Iowa in 1845, then headed to California in 1850 in pursuit of gold. But like most gold rushers, a fast fortune proved elusive, and the family returned to Iowa to take up the steadier, if less potentially lucrative, profession of farming.
It was back in Iowa that Robert, 14, got his first job as an apprentice printer at the Fairfield (Iowa) Sentinel newspaper. After he grew up, Robert moved around the Midwest, plying his trade at papers in Keokuk and Burlington, Iowa.; St. Joseph, Mo.; and Leavenworth, Kan.
In 1880, an old Keokuk colleague asked Robert to take a job at the Peoria Transcript, a predecessor of the Journal Star. Robert’s keen journalistic skills soon got him bumped up to the head editor’s desk. He would spend the remainder of his long career working at Peoria newspapers, before dying in 1911 at age 72.
A yearbook photo of the author’s great-grandmother from her senior year at Manual High School in 1935.
For a onetime journalist like me, it was surprising to learn that I was not the first newsman in the family. But it also makes sense. My love of writing and insatiable appetite for keeping up on current events did not occur in a vacuum. It seemed unbelievable that such a tale was lost, yet one will be surprised by which details are retained, distorted or forgotten altogether over the course of just a few generations.
Stories like these may also await you somewhere in your family tree, obscured by the passage of time, but needing only a pinch of patience, a little elbow grease and the willingness to delve into a musty tome or three to reveal something not only of your ancestors, but yourself.
PEORIA COUNTY GENEALOGY RESOURCES
Peoria County Genealogical Society
https://www.peoriacountygenealogy.org/
Peoria Public Library Local History and Genealogy Department
Main Library, Lower Level 1
107 NE Monroe, Peoria, IL 61602
https://peoriapubliclibrary.org/about-ppl/local-history-genealogy/
Peoria Historical Society Collection
at Bradley University Special Collections Center
Cullom-Davis Library, Bradley University
1501 W. Bradley Ave., Peoria IL 61625
https://www.bradley.edu/academic/lib/collections-centers/special-collections/
Peoria County Clerk Genealogy Indexes
https://www.peoriacounty.gov/1025/Genealogy-Indexes
Springdale Cemetery Find a Grave and Genealogy Resources
https://springdalecemetery.com/offering/locate-a-grave/