How can i find information on someone who was in an illinois orphanage in the 30's or 40's?

Question

i am trying to look into my mother's past and have very limited details

Answer 1

Those are hard records to find. If you, however, have a general idea of the area, say Chicago or a neighborhood or town you can look at census information for any record.

Answer 2

The information is limited. First some questions for you:

What year was your mother born?

Do you know the name/county of the orphanage?

Do you know which year she entered the orphanage?

Was it a court-ordered placement or a voluntary placement by her family?

Was it a state orphanage or was it run by a religious group?

Was she born in Illinois or just put in an orphanage in that state?

There are a lot of "what-ifs" in tracking orphanage records during that era. The first one is exactly which years she was there. Pre-Depression is different than Post-Depression. 1938 is different than 1942. Parents could have been very much alive during the Depression but unable to care for their kids, so they were allowed to put their kids in an orphanage until things changed and then could come back for them. We'd need to do some parallel tracking before we could find the records you really need.