illinois trust law

[snausage]

Exclamation please help, estate trust will i think sometihng is wrong
im not sure if i need to bring in a lawyer about this,
my father recently passed away ( 1 year ago ) he was divorced from my mother and remarried twice his present (at the time of his death) seems to be keeping any information about anything to do with his will estate and a trust that has been setup for my sister and myself. i think there might be something up as my sister and i are both not well off and my father was a very well off man. before his death (1 year before) he informed me of his plans about me taking over his business ( very large company located all over the USA ) i live in canada so i am not sure about american law at all. i am wondering if i am being fooled into thinking that any documents having anything to do with the estate are unavailable to me. it seems to me as if there was nothing to hide then nothing would be hidden so i am very nervous about the situation. My father's wife does'nt make any contact with either my sister or i and it seems to be that she is wanting us to just go away.

is there anything i can do to be able to gain and copies of the will and trust ?
i would just like to know for sure if there is something in the will for my sister and i or not. as it seems that my fathers words about what was going to happen after his death are much different than what is going on now.
also my father passed due to cancer and he did know that he was going to pass so when he informed us of his wishes within one year of his passing i fell it was his true wishes
there have been alot of things said about what was in the trust but nothing seems to be coming of it (somewhat like it just want to be forgotten about )
examples: income matching was part of the trust
it has been mentioned more than once but after i questioned my stepmother about it on the phone the response was "well we will have to see after the taxes are paid" now i dont think this makes any sense as my father had a multi million dollar corporation with many lawyers i would assume that they would have all these things sorted out already.

please if anyone has any help they can offer it would meanthe world to me
my father lived and died in Illinois (im sure that will make a difference)

I am not an attorney, but my mother recenty died, and I learned that documents such as wills and trust agreements are public records. They get filed with the county cout/clerk's office in the county where your dad died, or perhaps where he lived if it is a different county than where he lived. You coud call the county court (or perhaps it's called the county clerk's office and ask them how you can find out if there is a file there in your father's name. Obviously if you go in person you can get a lot farther a lot faster, ook up your father's name, and see if any will or probate record has been filed for him there. I do not know how long it takes for the record to be filed. Once it is there, you can ask for a copy, and pay them the copying cost. They may be able to help you over the phone and tell you the procedure for determining if a probate/death/will record has been fied there, and if so, how to get a copy. If the file is there, it would contain the death notice, and contact information for your father's law firm, so you could then contact them. The procedure for probate estates includes giving notice to creditors of the estate (via a public ad), and then waiting 6 months for any potential creditors to make any claims against the estate, and then taxes have to be paid, and then the beneficiaries can receive their inheritance. I hope this helps.