Madison
County Genealogical Society
Minutes of the Meeting – November 14, 2019
The November 2019 meeting of the Madison County
Genealogical Society was held at the Edwardsville Public Library on Thursday,
November 14, at 7:00 pm.
President, Robert Ridenour, called the
meeting to order.
The following is the Treasurer's report for
the month of October:
GIFT
MEMBERSHIPS AVAILABLE
Do you have a family member that is
interested in (or even obsessed with) genealogy? A membership in the Madison
County Genealogical Society would be a very thoughtful gift. A gift card will
be sent to the recipient of any gift membership.
The following memberships are available:
Individual/Family Annual Membership $25.00
Patron Annual Membership $35.00
Life Membership $300.00
Contact our Secretary, Petie Hunter, at [email protected],
about a gift membership.
November
Meeting
On November 14, 2019, Tom
Pearson presented a program titled Hoe,
Hoe, Hoe! — Records of Farmers & Rural Ancestors.
Information about farmers
can be found in many different types of genealogical records. Some of theses
records can be used to research any ancestor, not just the rural ones. And
others will prove especially useful for those rural ancestors.
Of course, the census would
be a good tool for you. And when I say census here, I am talking about the Federal Population Schedule; the census
that most of you are probably familiar with, the ones that would list family
members, household numbers, and things like that. They are available from 1790
to 1940, depending on when the state in which you are interested achieved
statehood. The first federal census for that state would occur in that ten-year
interval after they achieved statehood. For instance, Illinois became a state
in 1818, so the first federal census of Illinois would occur in 1820. Missouri
obtained statehood in 1821, so the first federal census of Missouri would be in
1830.
The census of 1880 is
somewhat typical of this time period and a format with which you may be
somewhat familiar. This type of census used to be a little bit harder to use if
you were working with microfilm and hoping that the local library had the
census that you were interested in. Now they are available on numerous
different sources: Ancestry, Heritage Quest, Family Search, etc. So the census
is relatively easy to work with now.
There are also State Censuses, depending on the state
and the years. Illinois has a fair number of early censuses prior to the end of
the Civil War. Other states vary. A lot of these state censuses are available
in Ancestry.com, so they are, at this point, relatively easy to search.
They are also relatively to
find: when you go to Ancestry.com, instead of using the Begin Search button, which you should not do anyway. When you use Begin Search, you are trying to search
20 BILLION records in Ancestry and the search algorithm cannot give you a detailed
search. What I would recommend is on the top line of the black navigation bar,
one of your choices is Search. If
you click that, the last item on the drop down menu is Card Catalog. So if you then use the Card Catalog and put in the
name of the state or country in which you are interested, it will pull a list
of things that are specific to that state or country, including state censuses.
So that is how I would recommend you do your searches.
You can use Begin Search if
you are looking for Eastern European people with vowel-less names, but if you
are looking for Smith, Jones, or Brown, I would recommend getting a little more
specific. You are going to get better search results. If you look on Ancestry
and do not find what you want, I would then recommend looking at the state
archives website for the state in which you are interested. Even at this point,
they still sometimes have things digitized that are not yet available on
Ancestry. So, that would be my second choice if you are looking for a state
census.
There are also Territorial Censuses for some of the
states. These would take place in the period before statehood was achieved for
that particular state. In 1885, there was a census of the Dakota Territory that
included the areas that became both North and South Dakota. It is possible to
find the Territorial Censuses on Ancestry.
There are Mortality Censuses available for
various states in various years during the period 1850-1885. The Mortality
Census covers the 12 months immediately prior to the date the census was taken;
it does not cover a calendar year. The Mortality Censuses are pretty easy to
find on Ancestry.com. And it is a pretty good way to figure out if a type of
special census you want is available for the state you want, in the year you
want, because it is not a given. In some cases, they were destroyed by weather,
etc.; they just do not exist for every state for every year that you might
think.
A Slave Schedule, available, as you might expect, for a slave state,
covering the census years 1850 and 1860. The slaveholder is listed by name on
the Slave Schedule, not the slave. Although occasionally, census takers would
do it their way. So there are a few available that actually list the first name
of the slaves as well as the slaveholders. But the instructions were to list
the slaveholder and the slave would be listed by sex and age.
There are also Special Censuses: Agricultural,
Manufacturers, and Business Schedules. These are also now available on
Ancestry.com and they are called the Non-Population
Schedules. Here again, it is pretty easy to browse and see if there is one
available for the state you want in the year you are interested in. The
information they are going to give varies. Typically, they are going to list
the head of the household, not the entire family. It is more interested in the
economics of that particular situation, not so much about people involved. But
if you want to know more about your farmer, your rancher, your whatever
agricultural person you are researching, this can be a good way to find
business information about that particular operation he was running. Another
thing is, if you are writing a family history, or thinking about it and you do
not want it to be something that nobody will ever, ever, ever, ever read, it cannot
just be a recitation of names and dates. It has to have some other information
of interest, and census schedules like this are easy ways to get lots of
interesting information about the family.
There are also Veterans Schedules, both Federal and
State. The one most people would think about automatically is the 1890
Veteran’s Schedule that lists veterans of the Union Army and Navy, and also
their widows. So, it was not supposed to list Confederate veterans or their
widows. Although, in some cases, the census taker did it anyway. When they did,
their supervisor would line out things they were not supposed to do. However,
it is just a line so you can usually read it. So, it is supposed to be Union Army
and Navy, but if you have a Confederate vet, I would take a look just to see if
that the census taker maybe exceeded his authority, wrote them in and had them
lined out later. But, anytime I have seen a line out, it is easy to read because
it is just a thin line. Some of the states had Veterans Schedules for some
years; it varies state by state. Here again, Ancestry has a lot of these
digitized; so it is easy to search using Card Catalog and the name of whatever
state you are interested in.
These schedules typically
will list the veteran, not the family. So if you are looking for family
information, it most likely will not be there. It will list the vet, so if you
have lost track of him for instance, maybe you can pick him up in a state
veterans schedule. It will establish that he was in a particular state at a
particular time. I have these schedules for western states and southern states
but not so much for northern states. Illinois has no veterans schedules, but
you can go to the Illinois State Archives website and look at nice lists of veterans
for various wars. So it is not like Illinois has nothing, it just did not do a
particular state census schedule simply of veterans.
Land Records, Maps, and Atlases
The states in the United
States divide into what are called State
Land States and Public Land States. A State Land State would have been
established prior to the establishment of the United States. This distinction
is made because prior to the establishment of this country, land was granted to
somebody by some other foreign country. Initially at least, and then there
might have been passages from private landowner to other private landowner. But
the initial transfer was always from some other country to an individual.
That also holds true for
this country. In this country, the first transfer of land from the federal
government to an individual is called a Land
Patent. When you hear that phrase, they are talking about the first
transfer of land from the federal government to an individual.
So, in the case of most of
our eastern states, the initial transfers of land would have been from a
foreign government, typically Great Britain, but not always. That is why they
are called State Land States because the transfers happened before the United
States was a country.
Public Land involves states
that were mostly settled after the establishment of the United States. Now,
there are a few states that have both State Land records and Public Land
records. Just to confuse things, I think. Ohio and Texas come to mind.
In State Land States, the land is measured and classified according to
the Metes and Bounds System. They
call it Metes and Bounds because it consists of places where boundaries meet, almost literally. If
you look at description of one of these things could be “Walk 60 rods from big white oak tree to giant rock in the field, make
a left and go over to the ? River, make another left, and return to your
beginning point.” The problem with this system is that geographic things
change over time – rivers can change course, trees can be cut down, the rocks
could be removed, etc. So, it is not a consistent system.
That is one of the reasons
they moved over to the Federal Land
System, designed in part by Thomas Jefferson. In the Federal Land States, they use the Federal or Township System. Illinois and Missouri are township
states. Townships are normally a square six miles on a side containing 36
sections of one square mile each. You could own a part of a section, a whole
section, or, if you had the money, an entire township.
Patents and Deeds
We have mentioned Patents, which are the first transfers
of land from a government to an individual. The next transfer where land goes
from a Patent holder to any other individual is called a Deed – one Patent, anything
after that a Deed.
Land Sale and Transfer Records
Land transfer records were
almost always hand written in the 19th Century. The signatories can
be a clerk in that particular county, generally. There might be an attorney or
two listed on there, as well as the people buying and selling the land. These
are found in the county courthouse where they recorded the land transfers. They
might be in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds, might be in the County Clerk’s
Office if it is a relatively small county. A lot of these have been microfilmed
and will be available at the state archives. That is the case for some Illinois
counties and some Missouri counties. You can find these records at the county
courthouses. You can also try the state archives in whatever state you are
interested in to see if they have land transfers and sale records for whatever
counties you are interested in.
Bounty and Homestead Records
A Bounty Land Warrant is an actual piece of paper issued to you by,
typically, the Federal Government, but it could be by a State government. You
would take this to a section of land that was set aside for Bounty Land. You
would pick a piece of property and then go into the General Land Office and
turn in your warrant. Then you could claim your property, up to the number of
acres involved in your document.
It is called Bounty Land because it is being offered
to you in exchange for a service you provided to a government, generally
military service, but not always. The thing about Bounty Land, when the
warrants were first issued, the land was only available to the person named on
the warrant; the veteran in other words – they were non-transferable. That
changed in 1842, when they were made transferable, i.e., you could sell it or
give it to another person. Prior to that it was only available to the person
named on the warrant and legal heirs. There was no federal law prohibiting
women from inheriting property, so it would have been up to each state.
Property law is still, in most cases, state-by-state basis. Unless you are
talking about federal taxes or federal land, laws of that sort are state laws.
So you are quite right, in some states, women could not own property. But it
did vary state-by-state, so you cannot make a blanket statement about that.
Initially, they could not
sell their bounty land unless they were willing to skirt the law. What you
could do is sign a power of attorney, giving your affairs over to somebody
else, typically an attorney. Then, that person could transfer the land and
probably not get both of you in trouble. You could not do it as an individual,
signing it over to someone else. You had to be involved in a legal subterfuge
in order to do it prior to 1842. Nine out of ten of those who received bounty
land were selling it to speculators and it was legal to do so. They were not
actually settling the land.
Plat Books
A Plat is a piece of property. A Plat
Book records the owners of property in a particular legal jurisdiction,
typically a township or county. The Plat Book has maps listing the names of the
property owners and showing what their property legally looks like. You might
hope that everything would be in nice looking squares, but no such luck, not
even in the township system. It is nice if these are available for property you
are interested in. They are not available very widely by state and by years.
Typically, when they are available, they are available prior to 1900, although
there is a set of them available that were typically made between the late
1930s and the early 1940s and they do cover a lot of the country. So, that
might be helpful if you have people still farming at that time. The St. Louis
County Library has them for Illinois and Missouri. You can also look in
something like WorldCat.org to see if there is one of these for a particular
place that you are interested in. A majority of these were published by Rockford
Map Publishers of Rockford, Illinois. You can often search for the publisher
and find these plat books, or at least find out what name you should be
searching by. The minimum size of the piece of property shown on the plat map
depends on the publisher and what specifications they set for being included in
the particular publication they were making.
You should also check the
state archives or state historical society websites for these plat books. In
Missouri, Missouri Digital Heritage website has a large collection of plat
books that have been digitized. Illinois, on the state archives website had
some federal township plats available. I do not know if they are still
available after they changed over the web address, but it is worth looking.
They were called Federal Township Plats
of Illinois.
County Atlases
County Atlases differ from
Plat maps in they do not show property owners but they do show things like
cemeteries, churches, and other points that might be of interest to you if you
are searching a particular family. Their availability also varies county-by-county,
even within a state. But they are easy to search on something like
WorldCat.org. I would also try a website for state archives or a state
historical society.
Directories and Histories
There were General and Phone Directories.
Availability will vary, partly with the invention of the telephone (1876);
before that there was no need for phone directories. You can also find
occupational directories, including farmers directories. A farmers directory is
just what you would expect – a list of farmers working in a particular county
in a particular year. A farmer who was a cattle breeder or rancher would also
be listed in this type of directory.
County Histories were often called Goodspeeds, but often they were not published by the
Goodspeed Company. They typically have two sections: the first is a historical
section that will give you information about the formation of towns, churches,
first legislative officials in the county, things like that. Some are
illustrated; some are not. They are all going to have ads. If an ad is about a
company run by one of your people, it is likely to be of great interest to you.
It is worth looking at the whole county history; some are indexed, some are
not.
The second part of a county
history is typically a biographical section and the biographies would have been
furnished by the person involved or his family. And in most cases they would
have been paid for and could have been exaggerated. They paid to get it
included in that particular county history. So the information can be very
helpful but it needs to be corroborated by other sources. Survivors or somebody
could have supplied the sketch, so the person involved need not have been alive
when the history was published. The longer sketches will often have at least a
brief history of the family. So if there is something like a Revolutionary War
or War of 1812 veteran in the family, it will be mentioned in one of these
biographical sketches. So, it can be a good way to get information on the
family. But remember to corroborate it from other sources.
Publications of Lineage, Patriotic, and Occupational Organizations.
Here we are talking about
things like The Patrons of Husbandry,
also known as The Grange, which
would have been very popular in many rural counties, and especially popular in
the late 1880s and 1890s. So if you had a farmer working at that time, he would
probably have belonged to a Grange in the county where he lived. The good thing
about these organizations is they usually had monthly or, at least, an annual
meeting and typically there would be a publication associated with that
particular meeting of the group. They would usually have a list of attendees
and they might list biographical sketches for officers of that particular
organization. These things can be helpful. I have seen a few that were
illustrated with photographs, but do not count on it. It will vary. Granges
still existed up to World War II and were still having annual meetings.
There were also what were
known as Agricultural and Mechanical
Associations. These were popular from 1840 to 1890 or thereabouts. There
are some of these publications for St. Louis, which had an Agricultural
Association that met at Fairgrounds Park.
There were also Fraternal and Benefit Societies. A Benefit Society was a form of
insurance. You paid your monthly or yearly dues and when you died, they buried
you, typically in their own cemetery. If you see a listing for a Woodman
Cemetery, it was initially a Benefit Society and the benefit was they were
going to bury you when you died. Depending on the organization, they might also
bury your family, but they might have been on their own. That also did vary. Ads
for Benefit Societies can be found in old newspapers. How else could they get
out the word about their organizations?
Patriotic and Lineage Societies. GAR Posts had roster lists. Initially, these
were fairly hard to access; now a fair number of them have been put in book
form.
You could also look at Trade and Seed Catalogs as a source of
information about what your farmer ancestor would have been doing. These would
have included illustrations of various crops and livestock. So if you are
writing a family history and need some illustrations or other information for
the family history, these publications may very well be in the public domain
and no longer protected by copyright. Anything published prior to 1924 and
anything published by the federal government is public domain and not protected
by copyright.
Journals can also be a good source of information. Cornell University has what
they call their Core Historical
Literature of Agriculture website. Again, this is a good source for public
domain material for your family history. The Library of Congress has what they
call The Nineteenth Century in Print – The Making of America in Books and
Periodicals. These publications are also copyright free.
I did a Google search and
came up with the Conner Prairie
Collection of Agricultural Implements and it shows particular items that
would have been used in the Nineteenth Century. Here you have to be more
careful because it may not be copyright free but it could be helpful just as
information.
Emigrant Guides
Emigrant Guides were books
printed by private publishers that purported to tell you about conditions
existing in a particular state. Sometimes they were very well done and helpful.
Other times they were just thrown together. They were also published by
railroad companies. The railroad companies were awarded large acreages of land.
Once they had the railroad up and running and they had stations established,
they could sell any of the land they no longer needed. One of the ways to
advertise this land was to print your own emigrant guide saying how wonderful
North Dakota is in January! You have to take the emigrant guides with a grain
of salt, but there were, in fact, some very helpful emigrant guides, typically
published by a private individual. Although, even they could exaggerate. There
were some tragic stories associated with people putting way too much trust in a
particular emigrant guide. Emigrant Guides were mostly privately published, but
the railroad companies did crank out quite a few of them.
Newspapers
Newspapers can also be a
source of information on rural ancestors, and Nineteenth Century newspapers
especially, since they tended to publish those comings and goings of local people
type things – So and so from Kansas City
is visiting her Aunt. Do not forget about classified ads in the newspapers.
You are not just looking for ancestors who might have visited type of things.
You can find what the price is for this sort of thing in this particular year –
more information for your family history.
Rural newspapers were the 19th
and early 20th century’s social media – someone is down with
influenza, it is in the paper; someone’s maiden aunt visits from Kansas City,
it is in the paper. Things that you would not associate with big city
newspapers appear in rural papers. It can be a great source of information on people
who are not going to be covered in a lot of other records – women, children –
maybe not appearing in a lot of vital or county type records might well be in
the newspapers. So they are well worth looking at. If you are lucky, and the
papers may be digitized and easy to search, but do not count on it. What is a
good source for 19th Century newspapers? Library of Congress,
American Memory, Chronicling America section has a LOT of 19th
Century newspapers – at last count, for about 40 different states and easily
searchable by keyword. Because they are both Federal Government and 19th
Century, they are copyright free.
They can be a source for
victual and commodity information, in other words, they are commercial pages.
They will often be either the first couple of pages or the last couple of pages
of the newspaper. That would be things like “Steamboat Arriving on Thursday
with Rice” or whatever it might be carrying. So it can be a good source of
information about life and activities. It can be well worth a read for a place you
are interested in when your ancestors would have lived there.
They also cover group
meetings and sporting events – church revivals, a meat shoot, whatever they are
talking about would probably be listed in the newspaper. It is another way to
know how your farmer ancestor spent whatever time he did not spend pushing up
rocks and plowing fields. Even farmers needed a little down time.
Newspapers can give you
clues as to what records might be available at the county courthouse or the state
archives. The 19th century records have probably been microfilmed
and they are available at both the county courthouse and the state archives.
That is the case for both Illinois and Missouri. Illinois records can be found
at one of the IRAD centers. In Missouri you can find them in Jefferson City.
Each state has a section of their website that lists what county records are
available on microfilm. So it is easy to browse and see what is available for
the county in which you are interested.
The availability of vital
record (birth, marriage, death) depends on when they started actually requiring
that these things be kept. Typically, it will be between 1900 and 1910. So
prior to that if anything existed, it is because a county basically decided to
do an experiment, which typically did not last long. But it is worth inquiring
with the county if you really need something prior to about 1910. If you are
very lucky, maybe they have the type of records you are interested in. I would
not bother prior to about 1850; you are just not going to find it. You are
better off looking for a church record.
Here is a death certificate
from Brook County, Missouri, from 1905. In Missouri, the legal requirement
started in 1910, so this county was having these filled out prior to the legal
date when everybody had to do it. So it is worth looking prior to that initial
legal date for an entire state, just to see if they are available for the
counties you are interested in.
What is the other thing
about death certificates? How accurate are they? What did the informant know?
Who is the informant? Is the informant a close family member? Is the informant
the head of the Poor Farm? Who is giving the information and how many unknowns
are there on the document? Each is a clue to how accurate it is. I have seen
misspellings for names, other say they have seen the wrong name entirely,
because the informant does not really know. So if you are looking on the
Missouri Death Certificate website and not finding anything, try a few misspellings
for the last name, or if it is an usual first name, just search with that. I
have found things that way; it will not work with “John,” but if he is named
“Ishmael,” it might just work.
What you will find for birth
places is that the little town may no longer exist or may have been renamed
something else. Another problem is that the people giving the information may
well have been illiterate and did not know how to spell the name of their town.
So if the person recording the information may be going by pronunciation and
the pronunciation was for a French or possibly German name, it could very
easily be misspelled. So if you are having a problem with a place name, say it
out loud, say it slowly. Something like that done that way, you or somebody around
you might actually figure it out.
Real Estate and Personal Property Records
Here we are talking about
things like Taxpayer Lists, Delinquent
Lists, and Seizure and Foreclosure Records. If you are looking for this
type of thing, the place to start is the county courthouse. Sometimes these
records are actually typed (closer to the 20th century), hand written
by individuals with very clear handwriting, or may even look like they were
written by someone who had been imbibing a little too much.
Some of these types of
records especially of the 1930s, 20th century may have been
microfilmed. So while they may be available at the county courthouse of the
county in which you are interested, they might also be in the state archives of
that particular state. So it is worth checking both sources. What I find
generally, is if a record involved is available at the county courthouse and
the state archives, try the state archives first. You will typically get it
faster and it will be cheaper. That is the case for Illinois and Missouri, so a
word to the wise.
Militia, Soldier, and Veteran Records
For various military
records, you can look for Militia, Soldier, and Veteran Records. What can be
available are things like militia rolls, military discharges, bounty payments,
and soldier naturalization records. Early in the Civil War, bounty payments
were fairly low and the regimental numbers were also low. In Illinois, in
mid-1862, the bounty amount was about $75 and the regimental numbers were below
20. You can get a lot of information if you look carefully at the record you
are examining. As the war went on and it became obvious that war could be
dangerous, it became harder to get guys to enlist. So you had to up the bounty
in order to get them to do so. Depending on when an individual enlisted, he
might have received a federal bounty, a state bounty, a county bounty, a
township bounty, and, possibly, a city bounty, if he were in a place like
Chicago. If there were a federal bounty involved, you might find it on the
muster rolls that would be in his military service record. But if he received
something from the state or local jurisdiction, the record is going to be
there. If he got it from a state, the state archives; if from a county, the
county courthouse; if from a township or city, probably the county courthouse.
Depending on when he joined,
the earlier, the more likely he only got federal bounty. If he joined in late
1863 and beyond, he might have been getting a bounty from these other sources,
so it is worth looking in those other sources to see if they have any records
of bounty payments. When they first started paying bounties, a number of these
jurisdictions would give them the entire bounty. So then what would happen? The
guy would run away, join another regiment, and get another bounty. As soon as
they wised up, they would pay a portion of the bounty with the rest payable
with an honorable discharge. If they died in the war, their legal heir would
receive the rest of the bounty payment.
Generally speaking, no
bounty land was awarded to Civil War veterans. The exception was in Texas, in
1880, they had a special program for disabled Confederate veterans who got a
bounty land grant based on their service. That is the only bounty land I know
issued for Civil War service.
You can also look for animal
and livestock records if your farmer might have been raising stock. Many
counties will have records of cattle brands and marks used to identify cattle,
records to identify stray animals, dog license records, which were kept
relatively early in some counties since it was another thing you could tax, and
wolf and varmint bounties. You would take your varmint scalps to the courthouse
and might be paid by the county clerk or the recorder of deeds, depending on
the size of the county.
When varmint bounties were
initially being paid, some places were not too bright. If a hunter brought in a
scalp to collect a bounty, he would be paid and given the scalp back. Then he
could take it to the next county over and collect again. This proves that
people will find a way to work the system for their own benefit.
The stray docket would give
a description of the missing animal, when it was lost, to whom it belonged, and
if there was a reward involved for the return. Rewards were problematic because
people would steal your horse or cow, pretend they found it, and bring it in
and get the reward – another example of people working the system for their own
benefit.
You can also look at School Records. Farm kids were often
sent to school, but during time to plant or harvest, the kids would have to
help with that. The school generally understood that this was going to happen,
so it was not usually an especially big deal. You might find Student Records, Teacher Records, or
Administrative Records, like supplies bought and paid. These records may be
found at the county courthouses and the state archives. If the state has some
sort of education department, there might be copies of these records there.
Another possibility might be a county historical society.
There might be records kept
during the school year, but often there will be some sort of special
publication for a graduation ceremony. In a typical rural school, they would be
graduating grades 1-8, maybe through high school, depending on the size of the
school.
Will and Estate Records
At some point, everybody
goes and if you do not have a will, they put your estate into probate so there
is a record one way or another, unless you are so poor that it is not worth
their time to do anything about it. Wills have existed since before statehood,
so they are very helpful for that reason. They are very helpful because they
cover: money, personal property, real estate, business interests, and names
heirs, including children. Generally, they would say my daughter, blah blah, of
someplace, and name the city or town she is living in at that time. They can be
very helpful for this reason. These are kept at the county courthouse, in
either the probate court office in the larger counties, or the circuit clerk’s
office in the smaller.
Websites of Interest
If you are looking for
farmer ancestors, Cindy’s List is
always helpful, since it has a section for censuses federal, state, and
foreign. So it can be a good starting point.
Census Online is a place where you can find censuses that have been digitized. It
used to be extremely helpful, but now that you can go to Ancestry, Heritage Quest, etc. not so very much. But if you are
striking out on the big websites, it can be worth taking a second look at a
site like this.
If you are not finding what
you want on Ancestry or Heritage Quest, look on Family Search because in many cases, they have different indexing.
Missouri Land Records, Maps, and Plat Books. The Secretary of State has
a website for Land Patents. If your ancestor was the first settler in a
particular county, this could be very helpful.
Missouri Digital Heritage also has some miscellaneous stuff like plat books
for particular counties. So it is worth looking at the big plat book set and
then just doing a search of Missouri Digital Heritage.
Southwest Missouri State University has what they call their agricultural
history series. This would be good for getting general information for
agriculture in Missouri at various time periods, not so much on your
individual. But if you are writing that family history and just want a little
more information, this can be a good place to get it.
Illinois Land Records, Maps, and Plat Books. Illinois State Archives has
what they call their Public Domain Land Tract Sales covering the first transfer
of land from the government to an individual. They also have what they call
their County Land Ownership Maps and Atlases. This is all on the Cyberdrive
Illinois website along with the lists of veteran databases and some of the
other things that are available there. I do not know if they still have up the
list of research pamphlets for genealogy, covering various subjects like
probate records, military records, etc. It is a general but pretty good
explanation of what they have at the state archives covering this particular
type of genealogical record. You could read them online or download them; at
least that was how it was when I accessed this maybe five years ago. It is
worth looking to see if they are still there; they certainly should be.
In finding newspapers of
interest, the State Historical Society of Missouri is the best Midwestern
source of Missouri newspapers. It is located in Columbia and they have a really
good website. With some indexing and lists of what newspapers they own for what
counties and cities.
The Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library is the best Midwestern source for Illinois newspapers.
They also have good information on the website about what is available. They
also have, or did, a card file at the library that would be various newspapers
that have been indexed at various times. So if you are there, it is worth
asking to see the card file, to see what is there for the places that are of
interested to you.
The US Newspaper Program is
part of the National Endowment of the Humanities. What they are doing is trying
to microfilm newspapers for states across the country. Typically there is a
central point that is handling this for the US Newspaper Program. Typically it
is the state archives, but can be a state historical society.
Finding Courthouse Records.
The Missouri Secretary of
State website which covers the State Archives has what they call the Local
Records Inventory Database. You can ask it to search for a particular type of
record or just see what they have for a particular county. It is not the actual
records; it is just a listing of what is available in terms of records for what
time period. So they are telling you what has been microfilmed and what the
States Archives has a copy of. If you cannot find it here, go to the county
because they might have things that have not yet been microfilmed.
Illinois has IRAD that will
cover the records for the county. For this particular area, the IRAD is in
Carbondale at SIU. There are seven IRADs: six regional and one specifically for
Chicago.
US Counties can be helpful
for finding information on a particular county – if the county has a website,
if it has anything special, what particular types of records, or other websites
of interest that cover specifically that county. It is worth a look, especially
if you are running into problems researching a particular county.
This presentation
was very well received and provoked many questions and comments.