Acceptable Documents

2. Birth certificates, if submitted, must show parentage; the seal should be visible on the photocopy. We only need the proof of parentage for living persons (see substitute documents to the right). Please black out sensitive information if shown on documents you submit such as military service or social security numbers, and month and day of birth of living people, and/or other information you deem private--.

3. Death certificates may be used to document earlier generations as well as the death date. Again, please block out or obscure military service and social security numbers.

4. Marriage records (civil or church) should be used to document marriages.

5. Collateral relationships must be documented. You must prove the veteran and his siblings are children of the same parents. Half-siblings will be considered if you and the candidate are descended from a common ancestor.

6. Military service files such as enlistment papers, discharges, and pension files are acceptable. The respository name and address must be cited. See the Help! page to locate documents.

7. Photographs of tombstone dates might be acceptable if legible.

8. Census schedules and city directories may be used to prove residence in St. Clair county.

9. Documents written or presented in a foreign language must be accompanied by a translation into English and the translation certified as a “true translation” by the translator (not the applicant or family member).

10. Old letters, diaries, or family bible records may be accepted as documentation only for the facts that the writer could logically know FIRST HAND.

Transcriptions of original documents, whether typed, handwritten, or hand-printed must be certified as a “TRUE COPY” by a courthouse or other official, newspaper employee, cemetery employee, etc. An applicant or member of his or her family cannot certify a document as a “TRUE COPY.” Photocopies of original documents are acceptable if there are no changes on the original, and, in the case of vital records, if the seal is visible on the photocopy.

Citations

• Photocopies from books must include the full title, author, publisher, and date, volume (if applicable), and page number on the photocopy. Repository name and address, and / or the repository Call number is optional.

  Photocopies from pages of official church or civil register books should be labeled as follows: Marriage Records, County Clerk and Recorder, Cook County, Illinois, Volume 10, page 200; Baptismal register, St. Martin Catholic church, Waco, TX, (1890), Volume 2, (page if paginated).

• Newspaper announcements, articles or obituaries must identify the newspaper title, the place and date of publication.

• Identify the author of original letters and diaries. Include the title page and year a bible was published when submitting family bible records. The current owner or institution which preserves the original must be cited along with the city and state.

Substitute Documents

Birth:

• Contemporary bible entries (see the opposite column, bottom)
• Church baptismal records
• Newspaper announcements
• The 1900 federal census may be used to provide month and year of birth. The 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses all state the relationships to the head of household (parent-child; husband-wife).

Marriage:

• Church register entries.
• Will or probate case file.
• Newspaper announcement or obituary specifically stating the date/place.
• The 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 censuses state relationships to the head of household. Other supporting information may be necessary to establish a woman in this census is the same woman in other documents, and not a woman by the same given (first) name through a different marriage. The wife's maiden name would still need documentation.

Death:

• Church burial registers
• Tombstone inscriptions or pictures and cemetery sexton's records
• Obituaries
• Probate records

Information contained in biographical sketches contemporary to the generation/ancestor in question may be acceptable.

Relationships may be supported with the 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 federal censuses.

Unacceptable Documentation

Compiled family groups sheets and pedigree charts, family traditions, "genealogy records" or compilations, family reunion records and similar material may be submitted but are not acceptable kinds of documentation, whether published in book format or on the web, even if accurate. However, you may certainly use the clues provided in such material to procure documents supporting the facts claimed therein.

Published manuscript materials authored by the applicant or his/her family will not, of themselves, be accepted as proof without additional documentation.