Source Information
About Illinois, U.S., Order Sons of Italy in America, Lodge Records, 1925-1977
This database contains documents from the Illinois Grand Lodge of the Order Sons of Italy in America from 1925 to 1987.
Historical Background
The Order Sons of Italy in America (OSIA) was established in 1905 in New York as a mutual aid society to assist Italian immigrants coming to the United States. The Grand Lodge of Illinois/Wisconsin presently has nine OSIA lodges under its jurisdiction. Among its efforts, OSIA has offered members scholarships, help with obtaining citizenship, aid to the poor, and life and mortuary benefits.
What’s in the Records
This database contains a number of different document types from the Grand Lodge of Illinois. The bulk of the records relate to death fund claims of OSIA members in Illinois. These include death certificates, member application forms, and other documentation necessary to make a claim from the fund. There is also a small collection of membership and death fund ledgers which contain some vital dates.
Information included in the records varies by document type, but you may find details such as
- death date
- place of death
- name
- age at death
- gender
- birth date
- place of birth
- spouse’s name
- father’s name
- mother’s name
- age
- residence date
Death fund claims have multiple records associated with them, so if you find a record you will want to use the arrow keys to browse forward and back to make sure you find all the documents related to your ancestor.
Some of the records are in Italian.