As mentioned in an earlier post, I purchased a reprint of the 1859 Hancock County, Illinois landowners’ atlas on Ebay. The image from this post is from section 3 in Rocky Run Township, located in the southwestern portion of Hancock County.

It’s where John George and Sophia Elizabeth Trautvetter, along with their children, settled in the summer of 1853 shortly after their arrival in the United States.

The compiler of the map apparently could not decide how to spell Trautvetter–it’s listed as Troutfetter and Trolretter in this atlas. I’m curious how the name is listed in the county tax records as that could explain the reason for the variant spellings on this map. Those records for Hancock County are no longer at the county courthouse and are housed in the Illinois Regional Archives Depository at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. I’m not certain how much those records would tell me, but it may be worth a look.

The square dot probably indicates the location of the Trautvetter home and I noted that the neighbor to the north had the last name of Herbert. That family intermarried with the Trautvetter family and John George’s bachelor brother Adam mentioned a widow Herbert in his will.

There may be more of a story there than what is mentioned in the will.

It also looks like some road ran through the eighty acres the Trautvetter family owned in the southeast corner of the section.

While I love located handwritten documents, maps are always good additions to a genealogical collection.

You can search to find your own genealogy items on Ebay.