Wonderful site for Illinois

You were in my home County, should told someone you were coming...

Well, dang! I had assumed you were on the west side of the arch. As it was, we crammed a lot of adventure into a short amount of time. There will be a next time.

I didn't spend too much time in the courthouse in Belleville but did some fairly quick grantor/grantee microfilm work and picked up so me handydandy maps from the mapping office. In Illinois, are the index books by section/township/range available in the Deeds office or do you have to make a title company rich to get to what you need to know. In Missouri those books are top secret and held by the title companies. In Kansas they are easily accessed in the Register of Deeds Office.

Holy Cow, post: 334129, member: 50 wrote: http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3780

The above link is to the purchase records of public lands in Illinois starting in 1813. What a tremendous resource! To clarify, these are the original sales from the US government to the entryman.

Recently, while tracing some of the Cow roots on the family tree, I discovered this site. Within a few minutes I had discovered 10 tracts purchased by direct ancestors and another dozen by their siblings in St. Clair County, Illinois. These tracts were purchased between 1831 and 1839. We checked out each of these tracts during our journey this past week. All great farm land, except for the one tract that is now part of the metropolis of St. Libory. The thing that struck me as odd was that every purchase was for a single quarter-quarter of a section. Around here virtually all original tracts were quarter sections or a combination of quarter-quarters adding up to 160 +/- acres.

Here's another great site. http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/search/default.aspx

Did they get a mule with that quarter/quarter??

I don't know about that mule. The land was selling for $1.25 per acre in the 1830's. Raw and totally undeveloped with little signs of civilization nearby. Makes you wonder what a full day's pay was in those days and how many days one would need to work to buy just one acre. The tremendous improvement to primary tillage of land, John Deere's moldboard plow, didn't come along until 1837. And, that was a single bottom of 12 to 16 inches in width. Imagine how many feet the farmer had to travel powerfully guiding that tool being pulled by some quadruped in order to work a single acre.

When I first read the heading for this thread, I thought that Holy Cow was proposing to move Illinois to another location. Question after question popped into my head. What about Lake Michigan? Does it go with Illinois? And Wisconsin? Don't people in Illinois own most of Wisconsin? Wouldn't it have to move as well? And what about Mount Vernon, perfectly situated for spending the night driving from NC to KS? Where will I sleep? And what would sit in Michigan's current spot?

Thankfully, he was talking about a web site. What a relief!

Enjoyed that thought. If we were to plunk Illinois down on Michigan you just might have enough soil to fill up all the swamps in Michigan. The Michigan state motto says something about: If you are looking for a friendly peninsula, you are there.

Thanks for the website. I found my great-great-grandfather, Richard Thomasson's 40 acres in Massac County.

Fun, isn't it.