Featured Resources
Fold3® (by ancestry) provides convenient access to military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served. Materials are searchable by conflict, location, and military branch. Fold3 also hosts War Stories – historical overviews of each conflict – and Memorials, where tributes can be added to honor veterans.
Eau Claire County History – Birth, Marriage, Divorce, and Obituary Database
The Eau Claire Obituary and Cemetery Indexes are maintained by the Genealogical Research Society of Eau Claire (GRSEC). In addition to obituaries, this resource includes birth, marriage, and divorce records with additional records compiled by area authors Lois Barland and Cheryl Janke.
Tools and Resources
Ancestry is the world’s largest online family history resource and offers instant access to hundreds of years of history in billions of historical documents and millions of historical photos from all over the world.
Must be in the library to access this resource.
Provided by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, FamilySearch is one of the largest collections of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world. Users must create a personal account to access images. Access to restricted images available in-library only.
Instructions are available here.
HeritageQuest includes over 25,000 word-searchable family and local histories; searchable versions of all available U.S. Federal Census (1790-1930) with completely new indexes created by HeritageQuest; research aids for starting your research or getting around roadblocks; and more.
Immigration & Census
Newspapers
➜ Archive of Wisconsin Newspapers
Wisconsin newspapers from 2005 to 60 days ago, plus historical newspapers from the 1800s and 1900s
➜ Newspapers.com
Historical newspapers archive from the 1700s – 2000s.
Eau Claire Area Newspapers on Microfilm
Area papers from 1850s-onward. Accessible in the Lois Barland Genealogy Room on the library’s second floor.
Local Resources
➜ Eau Claire Area Research Center (ARC)
The ARC, located on the UW-Eau Claire campus, is a cooperative project of the University and the Wisconsin Historical Society to preserve historical records in a six-county region consisting of Buffalo, Chippewa, Clark, Eau Claire, Rusk and Taylor counties. Online Reference Requests are accepted.
➜ BadgerLink Resources
Resources from BadgerLink: Wisconsin’s Online Library. Includes the Archive of Wisconsin Newspapers, HeritageQuest Online, Newspapers.com Library Edition, U.S. Newsstream, and Wisconsin Historical Society Family History Records.
➜ Chippewa Valley History
Includes a vast collection of digitized city directories and local histories from our Special Collections, as well as over 1400 historical photographs provided by the Chippewa Valley Museum.
➜ Eau Claire Obituary and Cemetery Indexes
The Eau Claire Obituary and Cemetery Indexes are maintained by the Genealogical Research Society of Eau Claire (GRSEC). In addition to obituaries, this resource includes birth, marriage, and divorce records with additional records compiled by area authors Lois Barland and Cheryl Janke.
➜ Wisconsin Genealogy Collections
Hosted by the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Other Area Resources
West-Central Wisconsin History, Clark County, Jackson County, Marathon County, Taylor County, Wood County, Local Logging Videos
Print Resources
The genealogy reference materials shown below are available for in-library use at L.E. Phillips Memorial Public Library (map). They can be found in the Lois Barland Genealogy Room (Level 2). Check our online catalog for genealogy materials you may check out and take home.
Also available in the Lois Barland Genealogy Room is our Microfilm Collection. This collection includes area newspapers (going back to the 1850s) as well as census and Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. Staff available to assist.
Military Records
➜ Civil War Soldiers & Sailors System
The Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System is a computerized database containing very basic facts about servicemen who served on both sides during the Civil War.
➜ Fold3
Fold3® (by ancestry) provides convenient access to military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served. Materials are searchable by conflict, location, and military branch. Fold3 also hosts War Stories – historical overviews of each conflict – and the Honor Wall, where tributes can be added to honor veterans.
➜ Military Personnel Records
The National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records, is the repository of millions of military personnel, health and medical records of discharged and deceased veterans of all services during the 20th century.
➜ Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers
The volumes reproduced here list all the soldiers known to have participated in Wisconsin’s Civil War regiments. Known as the Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865, these two volumes were compiled in 1886 from original archival records and their alphabetical index was published in 1914.
➜ The Veterans History Project
Established by Congress in 2000, the American Folklife Center collects, preserves and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.
➜ Wisconsin Military Resource Center
The Wisconsin Military Records section of AccessGenealogy has a wide range of excellent military information including how to order military and pension records, the 1890 Special Enumeration of Union Veterans and Widows, biographies of Wisconsin Civil War veterans and casualty lists. Scroll down for access.
➜ Wisconsin Veterans Museum
Search the museum’s oral histories, rosters, and collections, including photographed objects from their extensive archives.
Land, Vital, and Probate Records
➜ Eau Claire County Clerk of Courts
By law, probate records are open to the public. Researchers can look up their own records by locating the case number in the docket book at the Eau Claire County Courthouse. Copies may be made for a small fee. The charge is $5 per record if you need assistance in finding a record. Cases before 1916 are located at the Area Research Center. The Wisconsin Circuit Court provides access to more recent court records.
➜ Eau Claire County Register of Deeds
All land, birth, death, and marriage records for Eau Claire County.
➜ History of Eau Claire Houses
Resources for identifying the previous owners and architectural history of local buildings.
➜ Vital Records
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) provides information on where to write to obtain vital records.
➜ Wisconsin Land Records
This is an interface to the Pre-1908 Homestead and Cash Entry Patents from the Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office (GLO) Automated Records Project.
➜ Wisconsin Register of Deeds Association
The Register of Deeds files, records and issues instruments and documents of significance both to the community as a whole and to its individual citizens. Vital records document the span of our lives from birth to death. Applications, fee schedules and county addresses are available at this site.
