On January 1, 1916 a state law went into effect in the state of Illinois requiring vital statistics for births, marriages and deaths be recorded. Prior to that time counties kept their own records and the dates of coverage vary for individual counties. Cook County, in particular, kept vital records pre-1916 although there are few records pre-dating the 1871 Chicago fire. Below are the extracted entries for all Useldings from Illinois and Cook County indexes to the surviving pre-1916 records, as well as for Illinois deaths from 1916-1938. Because reporting was not required, the following entries do not include all of the births, marriages and deaths that occurred prior to 1916, only those reported.
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