UPDATE - Pope County, Illinois Survey Book Now Digitized!
Great Resource Now Available Online
In my March 1st Backstory Blog, I referenced a set of Pope County, Illinois survey records available at the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections at the University of Illinois Library in Urbana. These were the records of J.E.Y. Hanna and his father Geo. H. Hanna and stretch from the 1830s to the 1890s. They are not necessarily for all tracts in the county but only for those individuals who hired the Hannas to complete survey work. Nevertheless, they are quite extensive and help researchers to place individuals in a specific place geographically in the county, In addition, they show nearby landowners, helping in neighborhood reconstruction. These are so important in genealogical research!
While at the library earlier this year, I discussed the importance of these records to Pope County historians and genealogists. The archivists committed to digitizing them and making them available online. GREAT NEWS - THAT HAS NOW HAPPENED!
Here is the LINK to the collection: https://digital.library.illinois.edu/items/5b270c50-90cf-013a-c312-02d0d7bfd6e4-c
And here is the LINK to the updated description of the collection: https://digital.library.illinois.edu/collections/fd83e850-70b1-013a-c274-02d0d7bfd6e4-2
INDEX - After my visit earlier this year, I captured images of each of the pages. As part of my genealogical research business Backstory Bloodhound, LLC, I made an index to these records and made it available free of charge to researchers. Here is the link to the index: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11YZNuNz7a3KXBEWvHSFbE97e34C80jPMIEkUygmtSN8/edit?usp=sharing
I hope this valuable but neglected resource can now be more widely utilized. At some point in the future, I may add the image numbers to my index so researchers can go right to the exact page on the website rather than relying on the legal description.
Backstory Bloodhound, LLC conducts genealogical research in southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and southeast Missouri. If you have a brick wall genealogy problem, consider a free no-obligation consultation. More details about me and my services are available by clicking on "About" and "Services" at the top of this webpage.
