The Tazewell County Clerk’s Office has launched a new artificial‑intelligence search tool designed to make decades of handwritten and hard‑to‑read public records easier for residents to access.

Clerk John C. Ackerman said Tazewell County is the first in Illinois—and among the first in the nation—to integrate AI into its records system. The tool, available on the county clerk’s website, can now interpret cursive handwriting and faded text in digitized county board minutes, military discharge records, and old yearbooks.

County officials say the upgrade will help veterans and families locate discharge documents more quickly and give researchers and community members a clearer path into the county’s historical archives.

“We aren’t just looking at the old ink—we are giving a voice back to the people of the 19th century,” said Steve Fiers of ArcaSearch Digital Archiving Services, the company that partnered with the county on the project.

The county has worked with ArcaSearch for several years to digitize records, including military discharges in 2023, board minutes in 2024, and yearbooks in 2025. The AI enhancement builds on that work by making the archives searchable in new ways.

The project cost about $46,000, paid to Minnesota‑based ArcaSearch.