Illinois State Genealogical Society

*Vicki Dixon Mattson, President* Vicki lives in Waukegan and is retired from the school bus industry after thirty years in management and is still involved as an instructor for the state of Illinois. As a member of the Zion Genealogical Society she is President and FGS delegate. Vicki serves as secretary of the Waukegan Historical Society, and volunteers as a docent for the annual Oakwood Cemetery Walk and Tour of Homes. She belongs to many genealogical and family societies both locally and in southern states. Vicki has been researching her family history for twenty years, mostly in the southern states but also in Gallatin and White counties.
Tina Beaird, 1st Vice President Tina is the owner of Tamarack Genealogy and is the Genealogy/Local History Librarian at the Plainfield Public Library. She lectures nationally on military research, genealogical methodology, Scottish records, and archival preservation. She is a governing board director of the Illinois State Genealogical Society, the Northern Illinois Historical League, and the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board. Tina volunteers her time with several local historical and genealogical societies scanning and indexing historic records. Occasionally, Tina finds time to research her own family tree which she has been pursuing for over 25 years. Tina's Illinois research is focused in Chicago, and in Cook, Kane, Kendall, Will, Perry and Randolph counties.
Daniel Dixon, 2nd Vice President, Office Liaison Dan Dixon has live in Auburn, Illinois his entire life. He has been doing his own family history since the 1980s and has been able to go back fifteen generations on one line. He served as President and Editor for the Sangamon County Genealogical Society from 1995-2008. He wrote and collected data for many Sangamon County vital records indexes produced during that time, He co-wrote Wimmer Cemetery: Bare Bones Down to the Stones for SCGS. Dan served as Military Certificate Chair for ISGS from 2012-2014. Dan has worked at the Illinois State Library for twenty-three years and is currently a Library Technical Specialist Circulation Coordinator. He maintains and updates several local genealogy related Facebook pages, including the "Auburn 150" Facebook page, which contains articles and photographs pertaining to the history of Auburn. He also created and moderated The Friends of Wimmer Cemetery Association, Inc. for over 14 years. He has also written for several publications and books.
Suzanne Hoffman, Recording Secretary, Virtual Meeting Support Suzanne has been researching families for more than 25 years. Although she finds her Illinois-born husband's pioneer line a great deal easier to pursue, she still loves her mainly Lithuanian and Russian conquest of missing and unreadable documents. She's a graduate of the University of Chicago - Executive Management Program and Smith College, with a Certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University. She has also completed ProGen, GenProof, Gen-Fed, and is working on her portfolio for certification. She volunteers at the Wilmette Family History Center and is the current secretary of the APG Forensic SIG. She is primarily a Forensic Genealogist working with probate attorneys finding missing heirs but also has a specialization in Eastern Europe, Immigration, and Naturalization. Suzanne's Illinois research focuses on Sangamon County and researching the Rev. Peter Cartwright and Smith families; Cook and Lake counties and the Benjamin family; and early Jewish Settlers of Illinois.
Candace Marx, Treasurer Candace earned a Certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University and is an alumni of the ProGen Study Program. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, Chicago Area Chapter, and the Northwest Suburban Genealogical Society. Candace has ancestors from England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany and Luxembourg, and is currently researching in Kane, Cook and Kendall counties.
Laura Street Chaplin, 2024 Director, Newsletter Editor Laura is the owner of Willowtree Research Genealogy Services, and currently living in Sugar Grove, Illinois. Laura was raised in southeastern Iowa and has lived all around the Midwest, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. Personal research counties in Illinois include Pike, Adams, Schuyler, Lee, Peoria, and Sangamon. She and her husband, Mark, were inspired by the "Roots" miniseries in college, which began a lifelong love of research and genealogy learning, raising their three daughters tramping through graveyards – now with 6 grandkids in training! In addition to her genealogy business, Laura is the former History and Genealogy Manager at the Lawrence J. Martin Heritage Center in Elburn, IL. She has been active as a genealogical presenter since 2012. She is a member of the APG, GSG, NGS, several other societies and current board member of the Kane County Genealogical Society. Laura earned the Certificate in Genealogical Studies from Boston University in 2014.
Sally Cray, Publications Chair One of Sally's earliest memories is going to the cemetery to place flowers on her grandparents' graves. She loved looking at all the beautiful headstones and would ask her mother who all these people were, so maybe she's been a genealogist for over 50 years? Sally retired from the State of Illinois after serving almost 33 years and devotes her time to her business, Genealogy by Sally Cray, or volunteering for local organizations. Originally from Iowa, she now splits her time between her home in Rochester, Illinois and Florida. Solving mysteries is very rewarding to Sally, and she enjoys traditional research, triangulating DNA and non-traditional research projects such as prior property owners, antique documents and mementos. Sally is a member of Illinois State Genealogy Society, National Genealogy Society, New England Historic Genealogy Society, North Lee County Historical Society, and the Chariton County Historical Society. Combining her belief in strong communications and serving others, she hopes to provide additional resources to ISGS through her role as Publications Chair.
Kimberly Nagy, MD PLCGS, Prairie Pioneer & Prairie Patriot Chair Kimberly is a native of Ohio but has called the Chicago area home for over 30 years. Her family originated in 10 of the original colonies and converged in the Midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. She began researching in the mid 1970's and still loves to scour courthouses, libraries and cemeteries for information. She retired from a career as a Trauma Surgeon and returned to her love of genealogy. She is a member of several lineage societies and is active in most, spending her research time helping others with their applications. She also lectures on various genealogical topics around the state. Dr. Nagy is excited to join the governing board of ISGS as a director and is looking forward to becoming more involved.

Byron Holdiman, 2024 Director, Illinois Society Liaison Chair Byron is a librarian at Quincy University and teaches U.S. Research courses for BYU-Idaho's Family History/Genealogy online program. For 13 years, he worked on a grant project teaching educators about using the historical sources on the Library of Congress's website with their students. He has taught genealogy sessions for local public libraries and genealogical societies as well as at the national genealogy conference RootsTech. Byron has traveled throughout Illinois for his genealogical research. He has research interests in Adams, Effingham, Fayette, Fulton, Green, Hancock, Jersey, Kankakee, Mason, Moultrie, Pike, Shelby, Stephenson, Winnebago, Vermilion, Wayne, and Will counties.
Dr. Thomas Veeser, 2024 Director Tom Veeser was born and raised in Lombard, IL. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from St. Louis University (St. Louis, MO). He was in private practce in the Chicago area for several years, and then moved to Phoenix, Arizona where he taught Clinical Pediatrics at the University of Arizona College of Medicine until his retirement in 2013. Tom has been involved in genealogy and family history since the early 1980s. He has a special interest in the pioneer families and history of La Grange, IL and southwestern Cook County. Tom is a member of the Scottsdale (AZ) Historical Society, the Arizona Historical Society, and the DuPage County Historical Society. Tom is on the Board of Directors of the LaGrange Area Historical Society in LaGrange. He teaches genealogy classes and offers consultations in family history research at the Historical Society and at local libraries.
Rick Allen, 2025 Director Rick lives in Metropolis, Illinois, and is the owner of Backstory Bloodhound, LLC, conducting on-site genealogical research at facilities in southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and southeast Missouri. He loves to bust through those brick walls. Rick also teaches history part-time for Southeast Missouri State University. He retired in 2016 after 33 years of service at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois. Rick was the editor of the Saga of Southern Illinois for seven years and is currently the Genealogist for the Genealogical Society of Southern Illinois and the Treasurer of the Pope County Historical Society. He has been researching his family history since he was a teenager and has published several family history books as well as record books on Pope County. He has a deep interest in preserving records and making them accessible to future generations.

Steven Wright, 2025 Director, Membership Chair Steven lives and works in Joliet and is the Curator of the Joliet Area Historical Museum and Old Joliet Prison Historic Site. Additionally, he is a commissioner with the Joliet Historic Preservation Commission and chairperson with the Chicago Genealogical Society. He began researching his own family twenty years ago at the age of 17. Since then he has developed a specialty in Will and Cook Counties; as well as locating criminal cases and mittimus files for those who were inmates of the Illinois Correctional System.

Herbert Francis, 2025 Director Francis is retired from a career in the metal packaging industry although he continues to do consulting. Two very different versions of a family event lead Francis into the world of genealogy. He began researching the story and as they say, he was hooked. Francis joined Computer Assisted Genealogy Group of Northern Illinois (CAGGNI) and volunteered to help with their 2020 conference. He ended up managing their first virtual conference. Francis served as president of CAGGNI for two years before joining the board of ISGS. He belongs to multiple genealogical societies. His research is concentrated on the British Isles, Northern Europe and Scandinavia in the 1600s and early 1700s. Additional research is focused in the Southern United States. Francis also researches his wife's family which has ties to Southern Illinois, McLean County and Peoria. Francis is interested in making ISGS a valuable resource to the local genealogical societies in Illinois and through those societies to the individual genealogical researchers.
Geoffrey Cooker, 2026 Director Geoffrey lives in Shabbona, Illinois and developed his interest in genealogy at a young age. He recently completed a family history covering the Vorass family of Illinois and Wisconsin from the years 1865 to the present. He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University with a degree in English. He spent 35 years in law enforcement and retired in 2019. The skills learned as a police officer have greatly helped him with his family history research, especially in proof and documentation. Geoff has found the family history of his wife, Shelley, to be far more interesting than his own! His Illinois research primarily focuses on Logan, Lake and Cook counties.
Anneta Drilling, 2026 Director Anneta has worked at Joliet Public Library for more than 35 years helping patrons with genealogy, and planning genealogy and local history programmng. The last 6 years she has been the Local History Librarian. Anneta has been doing genealogy work on her own family and her husband's family for more than 20 years. She is a member of several genealogy organizations and the Joliet Area Historical Museum.
Wayne Duerkes, 2026 Director Wayne is orginally from DeKalb County, Illinois and presently lives in Ames, IA. He works at Parks Library at Iowa State University. His first forays into genealogy began while discovering his own family's lineage. As a social historian, he uses genealogical research to dig deeper into the lives of the subjects in his research area of DeKalb, Kendall and LaSalle counties. This data helps link family groups in chain migration during the Antebellum period and highlights family and ethnic enclaves during early Anglo settlement in northern Illinois. Wayne earned his BS and MA in history at Northern Illinois University, and his PhD in history at Iowa State University, focusing on 19th and 20th century U.S. history and rural and agricultural history, specifically within the Midwest. Wayne has several publications in the form of book chapters, journal articles, book reviews, and encyclopedia entries. He is also working with the University of Illinois Press for his first monograph of an expansion of his dissertation. Wayne and his wife, Jennifer, have three children that are all out of high school.