I was with a friend that day. We where on the quest was to find out more about her Germanic family's reason for being in the Chicago for some of the 1860s. I certainly didn't figure I would find one more puzzle piece missing in my research because I really didn't have anything prepared out of my research. By the way, that is something I wouldn't recommend doing, yet this time, it turned out okay.
AHML genealogy room is really nice and easy to use. They have genealogists to help if you need it. There are maybe 10 computers and several microfilm readers. Even though this library is in Cook County, their stacks contain books from Lake County -- my county -- as well as having many other counties, states, and various reference books, too. While my friend was getting help, I went to the Lake County selection which, as it turns out, contained that puzzle piece! Besides pulling vital records' books out, I grabbed the books on land purchases. That's where I satisfied my curiosity.
Lake County, Illinois is in the far northeast corner of Illinois. The image below is a Township and Range map of said county I found online. It was a great help in locating the land in question. Now I just have to get up to Lake County and take some pictures. I hope I can find the actual piece of property and hope whoever owns it now will allow me to be on it. I'm sure it has changed quite a bit. There are several new subdivisions in that area. I hope one isn't part of this property.
I don't care what anyone says, when you read a land location description with all the "east of the west quarter of the northeast quadrant ..." -- so forth, and so on...it can make your head swim. Unless you have a degree in surveying and a good "old" plat map, you can get mighty lost, too! Next step is to overlay roads and towns on it. Then I could pinpoint exactly where it is. Knowing this area, I'm not too lost. This map makes the location a little clearer.
This is nice to see. The image below also shows the names of the early land owners found in the book, First Land Purchases in Lake County, Illinois by Ruth Mogg, Midwest Crafts, 1979. And there it is, located Township T44N, Range R10E, purchased by Jacob SMITH (SCHIMD) and William GLASS. I should have taken pictures of the other page with 16, 17, 18 on it, knowing Jacob's neighbors to the north would be interesting, too. My son is a surveyor, maybe he will be able to help me further.
I look at these names and so many of them are familiar to me. Over the years growing up with a grandmother who is the granddaughter of Jacob, I heard so many of these names. I wonder if any of them came from Lincolnshire, England where my PORTAS family was from. I see many Germanic names, too. I wonder if they knew my g-great grandfather Jacob before settling there. I wonder how they all came about to choose Lake County instead of other parts of Illinois in 1848.
Well, I have a puzzle piece of where the land is located in Lake County. That's a good start. Now the my question is ... who the heck is William GLASS? And why can't I find him before or after 1848? I'm curious if he could be related to my husband's GLASS family or to my great uncle's second wife Anna GLASS' family. There is so much to research. Why can't I find information without more mystery attached to it?
