Piatt County, Illinois Harvest

Recently digitized books from the rural eastern Illinois county of Piatt, from Illinois Harvest:

White Heath Centennial, 1872-1972. S.l.:s.n., 1972? 48 pages.

Paugh, Myrta Grace. Biggest Little Town on Earth: DeLand Centennial 1873-1973. DeLand, IL?: Paugh, 1973. 91 pages.

Hammond Centennial Scrapbook 1973. Hammond, IL: s.n., 1973. Unpaginated.

Central and Southwestern Ohio Resources

The Fleshman Files website offers a variety of substantial index resources in Franklin, Delaware, and Hamilton counties: Green Lawn and Obetz cemeteries in Columbus, Oak Grove Cemetery in Delaware, and Wesleyan Cemetery in Cincinnati. Also in Cincinnati, Christ Church Cathedral and Fuldner Mortuary. Use with care, as some listings contain information beyond what's actually on the gravestone.

Land Records

Are you one of the many genealogists who search far and wide for vital records, but fight shy of land records? Two recent online items may encourage you to take the leap into some of the oldest and most easily accessible sources of evidence on ancestors:

* A new blog -- you never know if these things are going to stick around -- called In Deeds is an ongoing series of land research chronicles from Michigan, with sidelights on George Armstrong Custer.

* The Family History Bulletin at WorldVitalRecords.com reprints from Everton's Genealogical Helper a Republic County, Kansas, study by Mary Clement Douglass, CG. Using the tract book or numerical index to follow a particular parcel of land in Republic County, she shows how she traced a family "through 4 generations and throughout the United States. It has given us legal name changes, clues to marriages, death dates, locations to pursue probate cases for deceased members, and evidence of the family scattering in the Twentieth Century across America. All of this information was found in less than two hours in the Republic County Register of Deeds office." Go for it.

(And if you have research targets in Kansas, take a look at her brand-new book on Kansas research.)

Luxembourg Is Big in Wisconsin

Helen Pauly at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel highlights the Luxembourg Heritage Center to be built in Belgium, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin. Apparently, "people of Luxembourg heritage living in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota outnumber all of those living in the tiny country of Luxembourg." Luxembourg is that little triangular country squeezed between Germany, France, and Belgium. What genealogical resources the LHC may eventually contain, I can't say . . .

Old Ohio Schools

Find pictures of past and present Ohio schools in 31 counties at Old Ohio Schools. No actual hard-core genealogy here, but how great to see where your ancestor went.

What NEHGS Knows That You Don't

The New England Historical and Genealogical Society is making major moves into New York research, and extending little pseudopods even farther west. Here are Midwestern resources highlighted by Valerie Beaudrault in recent issues of their email newsletter:

Hamilton County, Ohio, Genealogical Society -- that's Cincinnati and suburbs to ordinary folks -- with online Cincinnati Newspaper Obituary Index (seven newspapers, some in German) and Cincinnati Marriage Indexes from several sources. The society also offers a transcription of the 1894 History of Cincinnati and Hamilton Co. Ohio.

Cook Memorial Public Library District in Libertyville, Lake County, Illinois (confusingly, the county just north of Cook County), with a local newspaper obituary index from 1894, and images of local telephone books from 1913 and most years 1924-1959. The library also has an online genealogy newsletter, and if you go there, offers access to the premier resource for original records from Sweden, Genline.

Winneconne Cemetery, Winnecone, Winnebago County, Wisconsin, with online indexes by name and section, and a cemetery map.

Early Ohio Tax Records redux

If you do lots of work in Ohio before 1820, you may want to take advantage of the reissuing of Esther Weygandt Powell's Early Ohio Tax Records, which offers partial census substitutes for the largely missing 1800 and 1810 enumerations in that state. Seventy-five counties are covered. Details on the new book are at this Terre Haute, Indiana, newspaper site (thanks to Genealogy Miscellanea for the pointer).

If you need to consult this reference only occasionally, be sure to check for it on WorldCat after entering your zip code. It looks to me like it is fairly well distributed (at least around the Midwest) in mid-size libraries as well as the major genealogical ones -- you may live within driving distance of a copy!