Methodology Monday with the ISGSQ

The Fall issue of the Illinois State Genealogical Society Quarterly seems especially puzzle-oriented. I'll get to the feature stories tomorrow; here are the puzzles:

* "Illinois Connections of Richard Milhous Nixon" poses the puzzle that one source gives the final resting place of Revolutionary War veteran George Nixon Sr. as Glenwood Cemetery, Coal Valley, Rock Island County, Illinois. Another places him in Glenwood Cemetery, Colona, Henry County, Illinois. What is not mentioned but makes the puzzle more piquant is that these two places are only about seven miles apart. Are they really two different places? Being as it's fall, it might be more fun to solve this by going outdoors rather than googling.

* An 1817 grant of land to War of 1812 veteran John Adams was found in Henry County deed records. Adams' ownership predated the existence of both the state and the county, but evidently it was in either his or a subsequent owner's interest to record the fact at a later time. Whether Adams has any interested descendants has not been determined...yet.

* Editor Oriene Morrow Springstroh presents her research exercise in identifying the author of an interesting Civil War soldier's letter from Texas. The author has no living descendants, so the letter's ultimate destination remains undetermined.

* Finally, a straightforward transcription from a late 19th-century "mug book" biography of John S. Sloan, born and married in McLean County, Illinois, but written up later in life in Hamilton County, Iowa. If Sloan himself were your ancestor, you'd be unlikely to miss this. But if you were stuck on his brother Richard or sister Kate (Sloan) Holland, it might take an effort to think of seeking their information in their brother John's life story.