Illinois Miners

Jerry Sherard has tipped us off to a valuable resource for those researchers with Illinois ancestors who may have worked as coal miners.

The Illinois Miners message board on Ancestry.com is a FREE resource which can be found at http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.occupations.mining.us.ilminers/mb.ashx. Jerry regularly posts items to this board and has a vast knowledge of mining accidents in the United States, Canada and Australia:

I currently have about 485,000 mining accident records (fatal and nonfatal) covering most of the United States, provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec in Canada, and provinces of New South Wales and Queensland in Australia. However, about 283,000 of the mine accident records are the state of Pennsylvania. The mining accident records are from the late 1800s through the early 1900s. I have knowledge of all major mine disasters in the US and Canada. I can provide advice on finding U.S. mine fatalities from the late 1960s and later and in Victoria province Australia.

The best way to contact Jerry with specific questions about Illinois miners, is to visit http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.occupations.mining.us.ilminers/mb.ashx and post a query.

© 2011, copyright Illinois State Genealogical Society