The Chicago Sun Times has posted a fascinating new website called The FBI Files. On the site you’ll find the digitized FBI files for numerous folks on whom the FBI kept track, and whose files were made available using the Freedom of Information act. The posted FBI records are on people and groups with ties to, or of particular interest to, the Chicago region and Illinois. These files can be viewed through this portal, with new ones to be added regularly according to the site. As of today, there seem to be 114 files posted. Click on the link or the illustration to view the file links. They are posted 5 per page (with 23 pages at the moment).
Note that File 1 for each individual will often be the response letter to the FIA request. So if you click on that link, and find it boring, just click on File 2, or above, where the interesting stuff may be found. In some cases, there is just File 1, and you’ll get right the the meat of the data.
Years ago, I marketed a book published by Scholarly Resources titled Unlocking the Files of the FBI. It was written by Gerald K. Haines and David a. Langbert, and printed in 1993. The book was a guide to the FBI records and classification system. Using the Freedom of Information Act was still relatively new to genealogists in the 90s, so we sold quite a number of the books. I see you can still find copies on Amazon. FBI files can be interesting. You might even want to check out your own…
Thanks to ResearchBuzz for the Heads-Up about this website.
