Genealogy & Community History

Aurora Address Conversion Index
In the Fall of 1928, the city of Aurora conducted a massive change of addresses to end years of inconsistencies and confusion. The City Directory from 1929 printed a chart that provided both old and new numbers for all the homes and businesses within the city limits. If you are interested in tracing the history of an Aurora building that predates 1929, you will want to consult our Aurora Address Conversion Index to locate older numbers for the property in question.

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The Beacon Obituary Index
The Beacon Obituary Index is a work in progress at the Santori Public Library, and currently contains over 113,000 searchable entries. These citations provide you with the name of the deceased, the date and the page number of obituaries, death notices, and other Beacon News articles that deal with the demise of a local person.

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G.A.R. Post #20 Deaths Index
If you have ancestors from Aurora who served in The Civil War, you may consult our G.A.R. Post #20 Deaths Index.

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The Kane County Marriage License Index
The Kane County Marriage License Index lists all the couples who applied for licenses from the beginning of the county until 1906.

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The St. Nicholas Marriage Index
The St. Nicholas Marriage Index will give information about wedding dates and participants who were married at the St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church between 1893 and 1919.

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The War Veterans and Burials Index
The War Veterans and Burials Index contains information about all known veterans of American wars, death dates and burial sites to 1927.

(For these databases, can we make the column headings appear at the top no matter how far into the database one goes?)

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Cemetary Index
Includes information compiled from a variety of Aurora and Kane County resources covering the people and places in our city’s history.

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The Community History Collection contains primary source materials on a variety of topics. Access the Archival Boxes Finding Aid here. Additionally, the Wilkinson Family Collection includes photographs, documents, and personal items from Aurora icon and social/civil rights activist, Marie Wilkinson, her husband Charles, and their children, Sheila and Donald.

The images in this collection depict Aurora, IL and the surrounding area from the 1870s through the 2020s. The collection contains photographs and postcards that cover a variety of subjects, including public libraries, Aurora downtown, historic buildings, and portrait photography. Available through Illinois Digital Archives.

The Emma and Robert Wegman Local History Room has U. S. census records for Kane County from 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, and 1910 on microfilm. The 1840-1860 censuses are indexed by the head of household’s name. There are also Illinois State census records from 1855 and 1865.

*Census records can be difficult to use. Handwriting styles have changed through the years, and the entries are sometimes difficult to read. Additionally, census information was often given verbally to a recorder who wrote what was heard. This means that names, places, and other information can be misspelled.

Our collection of City Directories runs from 1858/1859 to the present, and while gaps exist, we believe no City Directories were done for those missing years. Each book contains an alphabetical listing of Aurora residents in the pertinent year. Spouses and occupations are included in many of the early directories. From the 1895/1896 edition onward, a section in the back of each directory allows you to look up particular addresses by street to see who occupied the premises at that time. Aurora lots were re-numbered in the fall of 1928, and the 1929 edition contains the address conversion index, which lists old and new house numbers.

This digital collection of historic maps shows the physical changes and growth of Aurora over several decades. It also illustrates changes in ward boundaries, street names, and, in some cases, building and business locations. Available through Illinois Digital Archives.

The Emma & Robert Wegman Community History Center houses select collections of a variety of books of local interest, archival items, newspaper clippings, photographs, audio/video materials, a local author collection, atlases and plat books, and other microfilmed materials.

The library's collection of microfilm contains reels from a wide variety of Aurora newspapers published through the years: Aurora Beacon News, Aurora Blade, Aurora Chronicle, Aurora Daily Democrat, Aurora Daily Journal, Aurora Daily News, Aurora Daily Times, Aurora Economist, Aurora Fox Valley Beacon, Aurora Guardian, Aurora Herald Weekly, Aurora Labor Journal, Aurora News Semi-Weekly, Aurora News Times, Aurora Post Journal, Aurora Semi-Weekly Express, Aurora Sentinel, Aurora Sun, Aurora Sunday Journal, Aurora Volksfreund (major condition issues), Aurora Weekly Express, Aurora Weekly Herald, Dubuque Luxemburger Gazette

This collection includes yearbooks from various Aurora area colleges, high schools, and junior high schools. The selection of volumes for East Aurora High School, Waubonsie Valley High School, and West Aurora High School are fairly complete. Gaps in coverage exist for many of the other institutions.

• Aurora Central Catholic High School, 1969 – 2021

• Aurora Christian School, 1978 – 1994

• Aurora College, 1913 – 1980

• East Aurora High School, 1913 – 2015

• Illinois Math and Science Academy, 1990 – 1994

• Jennings Seminary, 1909

• Madonna High School, 1933; 1962 – 1963; 1966; 1968

• Marmion Military Academy, 1937 – 2016

• Mooseheart High School, 1923

• Nequa Valley High School, 1998 - 2001

• Roncali High School, 1966 – 1968

• Rosary High School, 1967 – 2016

• Waubonsie Valley High School, 1979 – 2021

• West Aurora High School, 1911 – 2010

The library's Community History Center contains hundreds of subject files related to the history of Aurora and the surrounding area. They are mostly comprised of newspaper clippings from 1851 through the present day. This resource compliments our expansive historic newspaper collection on microfilm (1848 - today). While the microfilm collection is organized by date, the subject files are organized by topic, including Aurora businesses, arts, organizations, people, and general history. Since microfilm research requires a specific date or narrow date range to be useful, the subject files are helpful when your research timeframe is extensive or undetermined. Please consult this finding aid for a brief overview of each series, folder listings, and suggestions for related materials.