Advice
Great Lakes National Archives
The address for the Great Lakes National Archives is 7358 S
Pulaski, Chicago, IL 60629-5898. You can get more information
from www.nara.gov. However, I go to the Archives frequently and
the website description of how to get there was completely
incorrect.
Although the address is on Pulaski, the actual entrance is on
73rd St [NOT 75th]. (There's a light at 73rd and Pulaski, turn
west, and then turn right into the third driveway. It comes up
pretty fast and the sign, though large, is not obvious. If you
miss it, you'll end up in a parking lot for Daley College. Just
turn around and look for the single-story, low-slung, circular
building on the north side of the street.)
Wonder of wonders, they have free on-site parking and a security
guard in the evening. The building is wheelchair and
mobility-impaired accessible.
Although the hours are listed as 8:00am to 4:15pm Mon, Wed, Thu,
Fri, and Tue 8:00am to 8:30pm, the microfilm reading room, which
is where all the census films are located, actually opens at
6:30 am, there just aren't any staff to assist you. So if you
have an idea of how to locate the reel you want, you can get in
a good chunk of extra research time. (The drawers are
well-labeled and I think it's pretty obvious.) By the way, the
staff try really hard to push everyone out the door 15 minutes
in advance of the posted closing time.
As far as getting help, some of the staff are excellent, others
are a waste of taxpayers' money. There are also some volunteers
who will go out of their way, interrupting their own work, to
help you whether you're an experienced reseacher or a newbie.
In addition to the entire collection of Federal census films and
the Soundex- Miracode films for 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, they
also have some bound indexes for earlier years, films of Chicago
city directories for about four years, and some of the standard
genealogical resources. Most of these other materials are just
for Illinois and surrounding states. They also have a printed
guide to the formal collection which might help you organize
your work there. (It does NOT include indexes, atlases and the
like.)
The Archives staff prefer that you make an appointment in
advance for morning, afternoon, or evening. But it's really not
mandatory during the day -- unless you're going to be there on
the day after Thanksgiving when everybody else has the day off
too! (Yeah, I did that -- duh.)
There's a small employee "lunchroom" that they allow researchers
to use for "brown bag" purposes. It has a soda machine and a
snack machine, but don't count on either of these being full.
Phone: 773-581-7816
e-mail: [email protected]
Hope you have a very successful trip!
Contributed by Carol Ann Kyrias
