The meaning of words can get us in trouble if we are not careful. That’s the case with some of the language in this affidavit. Nancy Rampley’s statement is actually recorded in the mortgage records of Hancock County, Illinois, and was recorded at the same time the Rampley heirs were involved in a partition suit […]

[originally posted on our old blog in 2015] We often use names of associates for clues, but sometimes associates may not be as closely associated with our relatives as we would like. I came across this advertisement in the 1856 Abbeville Banner while searching for something else and it got me to thinking about those land warrants […]

How many people lived in St. Albans Township, Hancock County, Illinois in 1910? The quick answer, according to Ancestry.com’s 1910 census database is: 1089. It didn’t take too much to pull this number from the Ancestry.com’s 1910 census database (see warnings at the end). Steps: Find someone in the desired location in the desired census year (I did this […]

[reprinted from 2015 and moved from our old blog] Elizabeth Shown Mills in  Evidence Explained (2007, Genealogical Publishing Company) defines the following terms: original sources as “material in its first oral or recorded form.” derivative sources as “material produced by copying an original or manipulating its content.” Reasonable researchers may slightly disagree about whether certain specific sources are original or […]