#178--Genealogy Road Trip to Paris

Edgar County Courthouse

My blog this week is about a Road Trip, which I took when I first started doing genealogy.  The Hannahs lived in Edgar County, Illinois for about 40 years and Edgar County is not far from where I live—about a one day drive.  So I decided to visit.  John M. Hannah, farmed and I wanted to visit that land as well as the cemetery where the Hannah’s were buried and the cemetery where my 3rd great grandmother, Elizabeth Mears was buried.  I also wanted to do research in the Courthouse and Genealogical Library.

So on a Tuesday in June, I headed off to Edgar County because the Edgar County Genealogical Library and Society is open Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On Wednesday morning I was at the Genealogy Library when it opened.  I spent that day exploring what they had in terms of resources—I looked at the History and Edgar County (which I discovered was for sale so I bought one for later reference), looked at indices of marriages and deaths, etc.  The librarians were very, very helpful in finding materials that they thought I might be interested in.  I also spent time with the person who put all the information on the internet for the Civil War Regiments from Illinois.  He was able to give me additional information, e.g. physical description of my great great grandfather.  For each day that I was in Paris, I stopped into the library and did a little research.

The next day was devoted to visiting the places I wanted to see.  One of the genealogy librarians drew me a map with very clear directions.  My first stop was the Light Carmel Cemetery, where my great great grandmother was buried.  I remember driving though a lot of corn fields to get to it and several farmer waving hi to me from their tractors as I went by.  Despite assurances that I could not miss the cemetery, I drove right by it (This was before the days of GPS).  Realizing my mistake, I turned around and there it was.  As soon as I got out of the car, I knew I had no clue where the grave was, so it time to walk by every grave stone and read it.  After about ten minutes, I found it.  There it was laying on the ground, broken off at ground level, and fortunately face up.  After taking some pictures, it was time to move on.

Next it was time to go see the farm land.  My directions told me to go down a particular road—I cannot remember the number, and when I came to the curve in the road, the land would be to the right.  Amazing, I found it, got out of the car and took more pictures.  It was still a working
farm.

Farm Land

Hannah Plot

Then I went on to Chrisman, which is a little nearby town where I had some lunch. There was not much there for me so I moved to Paris, Illinois where I visited the Hannah plot in the Edgar Cemetery.  The money for land for the plot, the large oblique, and headstones was contained in Abertine Hannah’s will.  Here were the remains of people I actually knew something about.  Further down, there tombstones from other branches of the family.

After that I went back to my motel room, rested a little and had diner at the Paris Family Restaurant where I had the best ever homemade strawberry rhubarb pie!

I spent most of the next day at the Edgar County Courthouse, a truly magnificent structure.  The clerk showed me where to find the land records and how to understand them.  The books the land records .were in were not able to be Xeroxed, so for each transaction for John M. Hannah, and his children, I had to write down such information who John Hannah bought the land from or to, where the land was in terms of township and range, etc.  There were well over forty transactions so that took a lot of time.  I also recorded transactions for his sons, John Wesley and George Newell, and daughter, Albertine.  After the land records, I got the probate records for John M. Hannah and Albertine Hannah.  That was enough for that day.  I went back to my motel room and spent some time reviewing what I had accomplished and making sure I had not forgotten something on my to do list.  After that barbeque for dinner.

My first genealogy trip was over; it was time to go home and analyze all the information I gathered.  Before I did that, however, I stopped at the Genealogy Library to thank them for their help.