Published: July 04, 2009 05:36 pm         

GENEALOGY: Courthouse fires are great catastrophes for genealogists

Every time a courthouse burns, it is a great catastrophe for genealogists as well as the entire community. The place where the county’s business is conducted, a repository for modern and historic records, the center building of the town square-all of this is threatened by a fire. Late this May, another Indiana courthouse caught fire. This was the historic Jefferson County courthouse in Madison, Ind., originally built in 1854.

The facts of the fire are tragically ironic. The fire started on May 20, within hours of the completion of an extensive renovation of the courthouse to celebrate Madison’s bicentennial (1809-2009). The last of the work was soldering the copper guttering that went around the roof and a spark escaped, smoldered, and caught the roof afire. The old timbers quickly burned despite the efforts of 200 firefighters from Indiana and Kentucky. The roof and its gilded copula were lost.

The top floor was waterlogged and the water made its way into the basement, where the records were kept. Officials took quick action to save the records. Refrigerated trucks were brought in to freeze the records (to prevent molding) and transport them to a center where they can be thawed and the water quickly extracted. It is believed that most, if not all, of the saturated records will be saved. The county vows to rebuild and restore the courthouse to how it originally looked.

There have been 30 courthouses in Indiana and 22 in Illinois damaged or destroyed by fire. Below is a list of the Illinois courthouses. This information is taken from myillinoisgenealogy.com/index.htm. The key is: TRL (total record loss), MRL (most records lost), or SRL (some records lost):

n Adams: First fire on December 9, 1835, SRL. Second fire January 9, 1875, TRL. Third time courthouse damaged beyond repair by a tornado April 12, 1945.

n Brown: fire on March 8, 1939, SRL.

n Clark: fire on Dec. 30, 1902, SRL.

n Cook: fire on Oct. 9, 1871, TRL.

n Crawford: fire on March 28, 1999, SRL.

n Cumberland: fire on Nov. 5, 1885, TRL.

n Franklin: fire on Nov. 18, 1843, MRL.

n Hardin: fire on May 19, 1884, MRL.

n Iroquois: fire on Oct. 16, 1866, SRL.

n Jackson: fire on June 10, 1843, SRL.

n Kane: fire in 1843, SRL. Second fire on March 13, 1890, SRL.

n Logan: fire on April 15, 1857, TRL.

n McLean: fire on June 19, 1900, SRL.

n Morgan: fire on Dec. 6, 1827, MRL.

n Moultrie: fire on Nov. 25, 1864, MRL.

n Pike: fire in 1831, SRL.

n Pulaski: fire on Nov. 22, 1879, MRL. Flood in 1937, SRL.

n Shelby: fire on Nov. 17, 1894, SRL.

n Vermilion: fire in 1872, SRL.

n Wabash: fire on April 5, 1857, MRL.

n Wayne: fire on Nov. 17, 1886, TRL.

n Williamson: fire on May 30, 1875, SRL.

Next week will include the longer list of Indiana courthouses lost or damaged by fire.