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.

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 petie8135@att.net, 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.

 

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