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Archiver > ILMONTGO > 2000-09 > 0968105411


From: "Edward Tocus" <>
Subject: Re: [ILMONTGO] Mont. County research
Date: Mon, 04 Sep 2000 17:10:11 -0500
References: <005601c016c1$03a94ce0$1a3010d8@JimandEileenStukel>




eileends wrote:

> Greetings, Montgomery County researchers. During a visit home to St. Louis
> next week, I plan to spend a day researching a link between my ancestors
> (Frederick HORNBURG, husband of Elizabeth KASSEL) and Montgomery County.
> One of the connections is that the family lived in Butler Township during
> the 1870 federal census. Secondly, although the family moved to St. Louis,
> MO, Frederick was buried in Butler, IL in 1887, his daughter Anna HORNBURG
> METTY was buried in Hillsboro, IL in 1910, and his wife, Elizabeth KASSEL
> HORNBURG was buried in Bethania Cemetery in 1904 (the only cemetery I've
> found with this name is in Cook County, IL). I haven't found where in
> Butler and Hillsboro the father and daughter are buried.
>
> I'm seeking your advice on what my plan should be: My visit is simply to
> find more connections to Montgomery County and to Illinois in general for
> this and another set of ancestors (FOGARTY-FITZGERALD) who may have lived in
> Illinois for a time. Should I plan to visit both Montgomery County
> libraries as well as the State Archives in Springfield? I understand
> Hillsboro has a public library with some genealogical information. Are
> there other worthwhile places to visit? Is it fairly easy to negotiate your
> way around the State Archives if you haven't been there before?
>
> Any advice is most appreciated!
>
> Eileen in SD
>
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Hello from Chicago---I made a research trip to Montgomery County last spring. First
of all, the courthouse at Hillsboro isn't open weekends, as I'm sure you know
already. Second, it closes M-F at about 4 PM, so save your evenings for strolling
around graveyards and so on. Third, in Hillsboro you have (across the street from
each other) the old courthouse and the new courthouse. The new one has wills and
estate records: ask at the desk. They will take you to the basement and pull the
wills, then you sit at a table right there to work---you can't take them out of the
room. So be prepared to take a lot of notes. Ask for every surname you can think of
and have them pull all the records at once, while they're at itn. I found some I'd
never imagined would exist, and where there was no will, the estate records can still
be very revealing (estate inventory, claims against estate, records of sale of stuff,
etc.)/

At the old courthouse just ask at the desk and they will show you into a room where
you help yourself to records of birth, death, marriage, and land purchase. You work
on your own. Standing up---there's noplace to sit down and the tables are of a height
that you'd have to stand up anyway. Death certificates didn't start until 1917 but
there is an old Death Book (very incomplete) with some records before that.

I didn't go to the Hillsboro library but the one in Litchfield has a whole little
upstairs genealogy department where I found great riches.

If you are staying overnight, forget the Red Rooster Inn, a B & B online. Its
location is convenient, right across the street from the courthouse at Hillsboro, but
the place is a disaster. The porch furniture is so rusty that you dare not sit on it
lest you ruin your clothes. The lobby isn't too bad as the local Good Ole Boys eat
breakfast at the hotel, but upstairs is like something from The Addams Family, with
long spooky corridors. Our room had filthy dirty carpet and bedspread, stained and
mismatched furniture, and piles of dirt in the corners. There was no door on the
bathroom, just shutters that didn't meet, and in the middle of the night while we
were sleeping, one of the so-called bathroom doors fell down and crashed to the
floor, just came right off the hinges. The toilet needed about sixteen flushes in
order to flush. The windows were sealed shut. Outside in the hall, the door to the
fire escape (second floor) led to a landing hanging loose in space, as the stairs to
the ground had fallen off or been removed. As for this being a B & B (as it's
advertised) the second B is invalid as we were charged for breakfast. You can get a
fairly decent breakfast or lunch at the Red Rooster, and, in any case, there isn't
much choice of places to eat. Main Street is full of boarded-up stores, and the Red
Rooster is just across from the side doors of the Old Courthouse.

There are several chain motels in Litchfield if you have to stay over.

The only cemeteries I can tell you about are Clear Springs and Elmwood. The former
is impossible to find without close directions from Carol Berry <>
who maintains this old pioneer graveyard. Elmwood is big and much more modern but the
super is seldom in his office---you have to go chase him around the cemetery as he
mows grass etc.. He is rather curt so have your list of names at hand if you finally
corner him.

Springfield: we went only to a library I think is called the Lincoln Library---has a
big genealogy department, found a lot of stuff there. Didn't get to the Archives this
time.

Where to eat: Hillsboro has essentially nothing, not even a supermarket, just one
convenience store. We found ourselves going back to Litchfield. Best place we found
there was a bakery called Jubelt's which does light meals and has excellent coffee
cake and so on. There is also a branch in mid-downtown Springfield.

...so, you want to look in the Death Book and see if you find your folks. If you do,
the cemetery will be named. You can also check various cemeteries. By the way,
James Starr, the brother of my gg-grandfather, was the surveyor who laid out the town
of Butler. At the courthouse I found estate records from that uncle's death at age 31
of diphetheria. His surveying instruments were bought at the auction by his father,
obviously to give to his other son, who probably didn't have the money to buy them
($35, a lot in 1863). The surviving son, my gg-grandfather, used them well as he
served as Montgomery County Surveyor for 44 years.

Good luck in your search. In don't know whether I have helped at all, except to say
that I learned so very much from a few days in Montgomery County, and what I got
there was information I could never have found anywhere else. Nora Tocus



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