By Dan Dixon - SCGS
Ask almost any group of adults on the street
whom they would rate as the president
they most admired and the highest rated answer would be ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Ask the
same group what career Mr. Lincoln followed before he arrived at the
White House and it
is likely that they will have no idea. The Lincoln Legal Papers hopes
to fill this gap in the
public's knowledge by presenting their findings with a multi volume
CD-ROM [compact
disk, read-only memory] and a multi volume book edition.
"In 1985, on the anniversary of Lincoln's
birth, Illinois Governor James R.
Thompson announced the establishment of a state program to fulfill
this longstanding goal.
Administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, the effort
is known as The
Lincoln Legal Papers: A Documentary History of the Law Practice of
Abraham Lincoln,
1836-1861."
The purpose of this project is to collect,
edit and present a multi volume book
edition of selected records from the 5,000 + cases and 100,000 + documents
which Lincoln
and his law partners produced during the twenty-five years that
Abraham practiced law.
There will also be a multi volume CD-ROM edition which will contain
images of all the
documents found that pertain to these multitude of cases.
Now what does the production of these two
items mean to the average genealogist?
Those of you who have roots in Illinois' long history will now have
access to documents
which were dispersed throughout the world - some of which have
never before been seen
by the public. Finally, you can prove or disprove Great, Great -Uncle
Job's claim that he
knew Abe personally. Some of you may even have ancestors who worked
with, were
witnesses in, jurors for, or plaintiffs or defendants in cases in which
Mr. Lincoln was
involved. When looking at the CDs, the user will be able to access
over 29,000 names in the
data base, search by keywords such as "cattle," see a summary listing
of the cases in each
court throughout Illinois and the Federal government and see summaries
of the actions
taken in each case. This project will also highlight the everyday experiences
of those who
lived during the nineteenth century.
For information on the completion of the CD-ROM
and book editions please visit
the Lincoln Legal Papers' web site.