Illinois State Genealogical Society

Suzanne Hoffman, President Suzanne Hoffman "The Genealogy Maven" is the current President of the Association of Professional Genealogists, a professional Forensic Genealogist, the Secretary and Advocacy Chair of the Illinois State Genealogical Society, and Assistant Director of the Wilmette FamilySearch Center. Genealogy is her passion. She 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 indecipherable documents. Suzanne's Illinois research focuses on Sangamon County, with a focus on the Rev. Peter Cartwright's family. She also does research in Cook and Lake counties, as well as early migration and settlement of Illinois
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.
Sandra Kling, Recording Secretary Sandy Kling was born in Evergreen Park, Illinois. At 7 years old her dad was tranferred to Southern California, which is where she lived until May 2024 when she moved to Valparaiso, Indiana. Family has always been a priority growing up, as they traveled to Chicago for many events, reunions, weddings, and funerals. A Great-Aunt, Grandmother and Mom interviewed and documented family immigration and created a family tree on a long butcher paper roll which was updated during every reunion with pens and markers. Sandy assisted in creating a 501C nonprofit, parent-run organization formed to raise funds for her local high school athletics department, of which her 3 children attended. She has worked as an Executive Assistant for 20+ years in various industries supporting C-level Sales Executives. Sandy was bitten by the Genealogy bug in 2020 when she decided to begin scanning all the family pictures to save for posterity and began to ask – Who is this and How are we related to them? Her Ancestry tree holds ~4,000 people and many cousins have been reaching out to get together to learn more about their shared immigrant ancestors. Most recently she created and printed a family tree for each of the 5 siblings of her Lithuanian Grandfather who grew up outside Starved Rock State Park in Oglesby, IL. She is a member of Ventura County Genealogy Society, Chicago Genealogical Society, and LaSalle County Historical Society. Her hobbies also include gardening, playing with her 2 dogs, a Rhodesian Ridgeback-Nala and Mixed Hisky-Mookie. She is also a die-hard Dodgers and Bears fan.
Randall Welch, Treasurer (Columbia, IL) Randy grew up in west-central Illinois, and attended Western Illinois University. He met his future wife there, and after graduation they moved to the Quad Cities, and later to southern Illinois (Marion). They lived in Springfield for 33 years, and for the last 6 they have lived in the Metro East, just across the Mississippi from St. Louis. Randy has a bachelor's degree in accounting, and an MBA. After a stint with International Harvester and four years in public accounting, he spent a total of 25 years working in finance management with Memorial Health System and the Illinois Education Association (both in Springfield). He also served as Treasurer of the Illinois State Historical Society for several years. Randy and his wife are coming up on their 48th wedding anniversary. They have two kids and three grandchildren. He just became interested in genealogy a few years ago, so is by no means an expert in the field, but is looking forward to learning more.
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.



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.
Wesley Johnston, 2026 Director Wesley Johnston's family history quest began in 1954 when he inherited the Johnston Family Bible. He holds Bachelor's (Northern Illinois University) and Master's (University of Illinois at Springfield) degrees in Mathematics and a Master's (UIS) in History. He served on the ISGS Long Range Planning Committee chaired by Lowell Volkel that reorganized ISGS and created its modern structure. He moved to California in 1987 and remains very active in genetic genealogy, administering several Family Tree DNA projects. He has researched onsite and remotely in many countries and languages, since his family is like the United Nations. He has presented at genealogical conferences and written 28 books, numerous articles and many web pages, including the site of the US WWII 7th Armored Division Association for which he is both Historian and Webmaster. Webpage: https://wwjohnston.net
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.
EvaAnne Johnson, 2026 Director EvaAnne Johnson is a Genealogy and Local History Librarian in the Chicagoland area, and has been researching her own family history since 1998. Her family's history is rooted in Illinois, spanning at least 5 generations from 3 out of 4 of her grandparents and reaching back to 1822. She earned a Master of Library and Information Science (MS/LIS) degree from the University of Illinois College. She is the Vice Chair of the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board, and a Consultant at the Wilmette FamilySearch Center. In addition to blogging and speaking about family history, she also contributes to publications of local historical societies and has written her own family cookbook.