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Current Updates to the Woodford County Site Updates March-June 2007
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| September 15, 2007 | |
| Major Changes | There have been these major changes since August 24th: The "Schools" page was totally reworked and reformatted with larger pictures, and it should be easier to use; The "Jinings Family Cemetery" was added to the "Cemetery" Page; The "Carroll, Hammers of Gabetown Cemetery" was added to the "Cemetery Page; and A "Cemetery Look-Ups" page was added, listing individuals willing to do cemetery "Look-Ups" for researchers, or to take digital headstone pictures. You can also volunteer "on line" on this page. Be sure to include your E-mail address if you wish to volunteer. Our thanks to Ken Wiltz and Shirley Weber who have both graciously offered to do lookups for our researchers. Click here to go to the Look Ups page
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| Here's a list of your contributions since the last recap. This includes those contributions which are now on-line. We also thank you for your contributions to the "backlog", and will acknowledge them when they are posted. | |
| Surnames and Brick Walls | We have had several additions to each of these pages. Don't forget to check them periodically. |
| History, Maps and Such | Amy Robbins-Tjaden contributed a Worth township plat dated 1873, bringing our total to 44 Township Plat maps. |
| This 'N That | Amy donated a fascinating 1930 newspaper article on a Benson boy turned criminal, who was killed in a holdup. |
| Biographies | Amy contributed twelve biographies to increase the total collection to 262 biographies |
| Schools | Dick Mayne cleared up the location of the Olive Branch School, and donated a geological survey map locating the Olive Branch and several other schools. |
| Marriages and Births | Marie-Frances Bayles added 8 Wedding Pictures to bring our total to 35, and Amy added 4 Wedding newspaper stories. |
| Obituaries/Cemeteries | Shirley Weber contributed 5 pictures and a
burial list, and a history of Jinings Family Cemetery: 2 pictures
and an obituary for Kappa cemetery, and 4 pictures and a write-up for
Carroll, Hammers of Gabetown cemetery; Shirley's generous donation
adds a lot to our knowledge of these smaller cemeteries; Amy and Kathleen collaborated to furnish a Minonk cemetery burial list of 2266 burials. Special thanks to both of you for all the hard work; Amy contributed 24 obituaries and 11 headstone pictures; and Cat contributed 5 headstone pictures With these additions, researchers have access to family data from over 380 obituaries, over 350 headstones, and burial lists for almost 4,300 ancestors. All of these obituaries, headstones and lists are searchable from the search engine on the Home Page. |
| Photo Albums | Marie-Donated 25 pictures and write-ups about her family. Eight of them were added to the Wedding Pictures, two were added to the Military Page, one to the Schools Page, one to the Group Photo page, and the balance were used a Bayles Family page in the Family Photographs section. Special thanks to Marie for the great photographs and write-ups. |
| Families and Homesteads | Amy contributed a family picture, and as listed above, Marie furnished an entire Bayles Family section. |
| Again many thanks for your contributions, and for your patience until I
can get them all posted. If I failed to acknowledge a
contribution, or messed up a count, it was purely incompetence and
not intentional.
Many thanks, Bill |
| August 24, 2007
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| Major Changes | Since the last recap July 18th, we have updated the site to
include: The Hollenback Cemetery; A miscellaneous page for things about Woodford County that don't fit any other category, titled "This 'n That"; 10 Woodford County Cemetery Pages previously part of Illinois ancestor's Statewide Cemetery project. |
| Here's a list of your contributions since the last recap. This includes those contributions which are now on-line. We also thank you for your contributions to the "backlog", and will acknowledge them when they are posted. | |
| Surnames and Brick Walls | We have had several additions to each of these pages. Don't forget to check them periodically. |
| History, Maps and Such | Amy Robbins-Tjaden contributed 8 township plats dated 1873, to
the delight of those researchers with relatives in the area way back
then. This gives the researchers a total of 43 Plats to dig through,
from 1873 to 1954.
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| Marriages and Births | Alice Dierker added a Wedding Picture to our collection Beth McMahon added a Wedding Newspaper story, and Amy added 6 Wedding newspaper stories, and a list of the 1942 Woodford County marriages With these contributions, data in the form of newspaper articles, pictures and lists is available on 340 Woodford County Marriages |
| Obituaries/Cemeteries | Kathleen contributed 4 obituaries, many translations of Sand
Ridge headstones, and burial lists for Lone Hill, Ayers and Wilson
Cemeteries Nancy Mundell added an obituary Ken Wiltz contributed a burial list for St. Mary's Cemetery (Lourdes)Marjorie Grebner Welsch contributed 38 headstone and cemetery pictures and an obituary David Crouch contributed a headstone picture and an obituary Amy contributed 22 obituaries, a Kappa cemetery burial list, and 10 headstone pictures Beth added 7 obituaries Linda English donated an obituary, and Cat contributed 5 headstone pictures With these additions, researchers have access to family data from over 350 obituaries, over 300 headstones, and burial lists for almost 2,000 ancestors. All of these obituaries, headstones and lists are searchable from the search engine on the Home Page. |
| Photo Albums | |
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Families and Homesteads |
Marjorie contributed a family picture Amy contributed 11 family pictures Glenn Oltman contributed 6 pictures of farming on the Woltzen farm, and Alice contributed 2 family pictures |
| Once again I can't thank you
enough for your contributions, and for your patience until I
can get them all posted. If I failed to acknowledge a
contribution, or messed up a count, it was purely incompetence and
not intentional.
Many thanks, Bill |
| July 18, 2007 | Since the June 9th update: * The family pictures were reorganized, expanded and released as a package, which makes a fascinating exhibit. More pictures are still being added * Steve Slaughter's "El Paso, a History in Pictures", was released to a totally enthusiastic response * The "Cemeteries" page has been overhauled; the Woodford cemeteries previously part of the Illinois Ancestor's State-Wide project have been incorporated into this Woodford site; and updating of the cemetery data has begun in earnest. This includes publishing lists of over 1700 burials in three cemeteries, with more to come. The search engine "did it's thing" this morning, so all the 1700+ burials and the newly incorporated cemetery pages can be searched. Links to all of these features are on the home page.
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| Here's a list of your contributions since the last recap. This includes those contributions which are now on-line. We also thank you for your contributions to the "backlog", and will acknowledge them when they are posted. | |
| Biographies | In the coincidence of the month, both Marjorie Grebner Welsch
and Amy Robbins-Tjaden submitted the same sketch of the Ede Woltzen
residence, on the same day (or close enough it didn't make
any difference.) Marjorie also submitted a biography and accompanying sketch |
| Cemeteries | Amy contributed a list of over 1000 burials for St. Patrick's
cemetery, over 700 for St. Peter's Lutheran, and 34 for Old
Lutheran. She also contributed pictures of seven headstones in
Minonk Township cemetery. Linda Livingstone contributed a headstone picture for Minonk cemetery Ken Wiltz contributed a headstone picture for the St. Mary's cemetery |
| History Page | Amy contributed a Linn township plat map and three for Metamora
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| Obituaries | Amy contributed 11 obituaries,
and 1 related photo Cat contributed an obituary Cindy Evans contributed two pictures for obituaries Lisa Peckenpaugh contributed a picture for an obituary Dave Tyler contributed an obituary Glenn Oltman contributed an obituary and newspaper article, and Marjorie contributed eighteen obituaries |
| Photo Albums | |
| Military | Amy contributed another WWII military picture |
| Group Pictures and Reunions | Amy contributed three group pictures of El Paso groups, probably
the VFW, for which we need some help to identify the members She also contributed a 1940 Reunion picture |
| Families and Homesteads | Glenn Oltman contributed six great pictures of the interior and
exterior of the Woltzen homestead Marjorie contributed six family pictures, and Amy contributed eight to round out the Family pictures for the month. (Keep watching, there are more in work.) |
| Street scenes | Marjorie contributed three pictures from the Art Grebner
collection of street scenes in Metamora and Eureka Steve Slaughter contributed almost a hundred pictures and write-ups on the history of El Paso |
| School Pictures | Amy identified the school children in the 1906-1910 Benson Center School Picture |
| And last but not least, Amy gave us a Wooden Nickel, which we
put on the Candid Photo page. Once again I can't thank y'all enough for the great contributions, and for your patience until I can get them all posted. If I failed to acknowledge a contribution, or messed up a count, it was purely incompetence and not intentional. Many thanks, Bill |
| June 9, 2007 | Since the May 20th update, a lot has happened. *A photo album of Wedding Pictures was added to the Marriages page, which turned out to be wildly popular. To date there are 27 Wedding Pictures , ranging from Woltzen-Kauffold in 1867, to Milashoski-Tjaden in 1953. You can get to this album either through the Marriages page, or the Photographs page. |
| * An1878 list of Panola Township Voters and Taxpayers was added to the Spring Bay list, and the page was renamed Woodford County Taxpayers. | |
| * A particularly
interesting autobiography by Annie (Harms) Meyer was added where she
wrote of her life in Woodford County from her birth in 1855 until
her 50th Wedding anniversary in 1922.
(Click here if you would like to
read it.) * Be sure and check out the photographs pages. There have been some fantastic pictures added to all of the photo albums, including several in the group pictures and reunions album that we need some help with identification |
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| Here's a list of your contributions since the last recap. As always, this includes those contributions which are now on-line. We also thank you for your contributions to the "backlog", and will acknowledge them when they are posted. | |
| Biographies | Norm Nesheim contributed two biographies, including the
autobiography by his great-aunt Annie (Harms) Meyer and two related
pictures Steve Roberts contributed two biographies of his ancestor, A. H. Brubaker |
| Obituaries | Amy Robbins-Tjaden contributed thirty-eight obituaries,
nine related photos and three funeral cards Norm Nesheim contributed an obituary Nancy Mundell contributed eleven obituaries and a picture Kathleen contributed twenty-seven obituaries and a picture, and Marjorie Grebner Welsch contributed twenty-three obituaries and thirteen pictures |
| Woodford Taxpayers | Wini Caudell contributed a transcription of the 1878 Panola Township Voters and Taxpayers |
| Photo Albums | |
| Military | Amy contributed two, and Marjorie contributed three pictures, including Civil War and WWI pictures |
| Group Pictures and Reunions | Cindy Evans contributed two pictures, Glenn Oltman contributed a Woltzen reunion picture with identification of the attendees, and Amy and Marjorie contributed four and three pictures each |
| Families and Homesteads | Amy contributed a group of three great pictures of the extended Janssen family |
| Woodford Candid Photographs | Nancy and Amy contributed two pictures each and Cindy Pickard contributed a picture |
| Wedding Pictures | Nancy contributed a photo and a great newspaper account, and Amy and Marjorie contributed thirteen and ten pictures to add to those we already had on site. |
| School Pictures | Amy contributed a class picture from the Old Benson High School from about 1920, for which we need help with identification of the students. |
| I can't go into any detail in this recap as to how fascinating these contributions have been. I can only recommend that you browse for yourselves--the pictures, especially give a great feel as to what it was like in Woodford County. I'm terribly sorry if I miscounted or left someone out. Believe me, it was purely unintentional. All your contributions are greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Bill |
| May 20, 2007 | Since the last update April 29th, there has been considerable activity. We have added: |
| * A new "Marriages" page to list the Woodford County marriages for 1939. This page was later changed to "Marriages and Births" when the list of Woodford County births in 1928 was added. | |
| * A new album was added to the "Photographs" page to include Woodford County candid photos. (There's a lot of room there to share your favorite snapshots.) | |
| * The "Woodford Groups" album in the "Photographs" page was revised to include reunions, and is now titled "Woodford Groups and Reunions" Two photographs of large family reunions were added. | |
| * Twenty-one new Woodford County Plats, including a complete set dated 1954 were added to the "History, Maps and Such" page | |
| Here's a list of your contributions since the last recap. As always, this includes those contributions which are now on-line. We also thank you for your contributions to the "backlog", and will acknowledge them when they are posted. | |
| Biographies | Amy Robins-Tjaden contributed fourteen biographies, including
ten classified as "Early Settlers" Marie-Frances Bayles contributed three biographies |
| Obituaries | Amy contributed sixty-eight obituaries, seven photos and a
funeral card
Kris Murray contributed two obituaries Kathleen contributed thirteen obituaries |
| Military Page | Kathleen contributed a news article, which will also be included in the obituaries, of two WWII deaths of brothers in the Tammen family occurring within a matter of days |
| Group Pictures and Reunions | Amy contributed terrific family reunion pictures of the 1939 Flohr-Warnkes-Redenius Reunion, and the 1907 Saathoff Reunion |
| Woodford Candid Photographs | Amy contributed all seven of these terrific pictures. |
| Once again, many many thanks for all your contributions.
And if I missed anyone's contribution, it was totally unintentional.
Bill |
| April 29, 2007 | |
| After ten days, it's time to take stock of where we are, and to give credit to all the generous contributors to this site. | |
| There have been several major changes in the last ten days: * A new page was added for Early Settlers from Bavaria |
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| * A major revision was made to the Military page, to include pictures of Woodford County residents in World Wars I and II | |
| * Many pictures were added to obituaries and biographies. You can now browse the indices for those pages looking for miniature pictures, to find the biographies or obituaries that have photos | |
| * A new album was added to the Photographs page to include Woodford County group pictures | |
| * Another album was added to the Photographs page to include historical Woodford County street scenes, primarily of Minonk right now | |
| * A new page, History, Maps and Such, was added, which includes a description of the formation of Woodford county, a time line, and several plat maps | |
| We have recently received permission from the Lake County Discovery Museum to use historical photographs and post cards from their extensive collection. To date we have included several of their historical postcards of Minonk scenes in the "street scenes" photograph album. There are many more to come. | |
| Here's a list of your contributions since the last recap. As always, this includes those contributions which are now on-line. We also thank you for your contributions to the "backlog", and will acknowledge them when they are posted. | |
| Good Ideas | Kris Murray has suggested that we add a form (and a page)
on which researchers could add death certificate information so it
would be available to all researchers. This information is not
extensive enough for an obituary or a biography, but it's good sound
genealogy data. As a result of Kris' suggestion, we are working with Janine Crandell to see if and how this could be done. Thanks for yet another good idea, Kris. |
| Biographies | Amy Robbins-Tjaden contribute an early settlers biography, and Ken Wiltz contributed his work on the Bavarian settlers in Woodford county |
| Obituaries | Amy contributed 19 obituaries and 5 pictures Cindy Evans contributed an obituary and 2 pictures, and Cat contributed an obituary |
| Military Page | Amy contributed a Metamora yearbook dedication listing all their
graduates serving in WW II, a fascinating WWI newspaper clipping,
and 2 military pictures Marjie Grebner Welsch contributed three military pictures of her family |
| School Pictures | Amy contributed a photo of Lowpoint HS, and a 1946 picture of the Minonk 4th grade |
| History, Maps and Such | Amy contributed Plats for Linn, Palestine and Metamora townships, and Ken Wiltz contributed his work on a time-line of the history of Woodford county |
| Group Pictures | Amy contributed a Confirmation Class photo, and Ken contributed a photo of the Metamora Military Band |
| Street Scene Pictures | Ken Wiltz contributed a photo and his terrific write-up on
the St. Mary's of Lourdes church Amy contributed 7 photographs from her collection of Minonk street scenes |
| Surnames, Brick Walls and Mailing List | As usual, there were too many additions to keep track of. Be sure to check the surnames and brick walls from time to time for changes |
| Phew! And after all that there is still more backlog than there was ten days ago. Many, many thanks everyone! Again, if I missed your contribution, please don't feel offended. It wasn't intentional. Bill |
| April 19, 2007 | |
| Despite a two week vacation, we managed to add significantly to the web site since the last update. And the contributions keep flowing! Many thanks to you all. | |
| There have been three major changes recently: * An 1878 Woodford County Business Directory was added--sorta like the yellow pages, but without phone numbers. The directory is divided into townships and makes fascinating reading. But who knew they needed so many lawyers back then? |
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| * We added the 1878 Taxpayer Rolls for Spring Bay Township. Many of the entries are just name listings with their occupations, but there are also a significant number of biographical sketches. | |
| * Kris Murray had suggested that it would be useful to mark the indices of biographies and obituaries to show those that include pictures. I agreed that it was a great idea, so there is now a miniature picture beside each name if the bio or the obit includes a picture. (Um, er, yes, that was a hint. Wouldn't you like to show off pictures of your relatives? Just send me the picture and tell me to which bio or obit it belongs.) | |
| Here's a list of the additions since the last recap. As always, this includes those contributions which are now on-line. We also thank you for your contributions to the "backlog", and will acknowledge them when they are posted. | |
| Good Ideas | * Marie-Frances Bayles
suggested a "Family Tree" page, which is now on the "to-do"
list, with a place holder on the main page. Coming soon!
Thanks, Marie. * Kris Murray suggested marking the biography and obituaries that include pictures. That idea has been implemented. Many thanks, Kris. |
| 1878 Tax Rolls | Thanks to Wini Caudell, another of our Illinois Ancestors Hosts, who furnished this transcription |
| 1878 Business Directory | Amy Robbins-Tjaden furnished this fascinating transcription |
| Biographies | No entries this time, but we have some coming soon. |
| Obituaries | Amy Robbins-Tjaden contributed 28 obituaries and 4 pictures Marie-Frances Bayles and Ken Wiltz each contributed an obituary Kris Murray contributed 8 obituaries |
| School Pictures | No activity this time |
| Family and Homestead Pictures | No activity this time |
| Surnames, Brick Walls and Mailing List | There were too many additions to keep track of. Be sure to check the surnames and brick walls from time to time for changes |
| Hopefully I haven't missed anybody. If I did you have my apology. With so much incoming volume it's hard to keep a count, especially when someone has a lapse and submits an obit three times <grin>. (But I'm not telling who.) | |
| Many thanks to y'all. Without the donations, there
wouldn't be much of a web site. Bill |
| March 31, 2007 | |
| After a busy week, the backlog of items to put up on the web site has more than doubled! What a great bunch of contributors and researchers you all are. You know how to keep a retiree busy and out of trouble. | |
| There have been two major changes this week: * We have started to add pictures to the obituaries, which adds a great deal of interest to the obituaries section. Cindy Pickard and Amy Robbins-Tjaden both contributed great pictures to kick off this effort. |
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| * A "School Pictures" page has been added, which includes pictures of classes from some Woodford County schools from 1897 through the early 1900's, as well as terrific pictures of some of the old school buildings. A lot of the class pictures identify all, or almost all of the students--maybe your grandmother or grandfather? | |
| The School Pictures page can be found either by going to the "Photographs" page and clicking on the "Woodford School Pictures" link, or through the "Schools" page where links to individual schools or towns are highlighted in blue. A word of caution about the Schools page: It will undergo a major revision. It is set up right now from the Government data on schools, and we have some major exceptions to where they say some of the schools were located. So pay little attention to school locations until we can get them revised. | |
| Here's a list of the additions for the past week. As always, this includes those contributions which are now on-line. We thank you for your contributions in the "backlog", and will acknowledge them when they are posted. | |
| Biographies | Ken Wiltz contributed his biography on his grandfather |
| Obituaries | Amy Robbins-Tjaden contribute 26 obituaries and 3 pictures |
| Cindy Evans, Cat and Ken Wiltz each contributed an obituary | |
| Cindy Pickard contributed a picture | |
| School Pictures | Marjorie Grebner Welsch contribute 8 pictures of the historical Hickory Point School |
| Ken Wiltz contributed class pictures from Metamora High School and St. Mary's School | |
| Amy Robbins-Tjaden contributed a class picture from Center School and pictures of the old Olive Branch, Benson H. S. and Minonk school buildings | |
| Janine Crandell contributed links to old class pictures from Metamora H. S. and Germantown Grade School | |
| Family and Homestead Pictures | Ken Wiltz contributed a terrific 1896 Theena/Wiltz wedding photo and write-up |
| Surnames, Brick Walls and Mailing List | There were too many additions to keep track of. Be sure to check the surnames and brick walls from time to time for changes |
| I think that's an accurate summary of the changes. Please
forgive me if I have missed any of your contributions. And
many, many thanks to you all for your interest and support. Bill |
| March 24, 2007 | |
| The following changes have been made in the last ten days.
The quantity and quality of donations has been outstanding, and I
have been running hard, just to try to keep up. Because of the sheer volume, I have not tried to keep up with changes to the Surnames page, nor the Brick Walls and the Family Tree Pages. Be sure to check them periodically, as new information is always being added. |
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| As always, these are the changes that have been put on-line. There are many more contributions that will be acknowledged when they are published. | |
| * Marjorie Grebner
Welsch contributed six family photos, with write-ups, including a
hand-colored farm scene. The family ancestral photos and write-ups
were also put in the Biographies page
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| * Ken Wiltz
contributed a great photo of the Metamora family homestead in
1894-1895, with identification of all the family members. Ken
also contributed three of his own biographies of his Wilz/Wiltz
family
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| * Janine
Crandell contributed 17 photos of 1878 Woodford County citizens
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| * Laraine
Wilson Wessels contributed a biography
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| * Amy
Robbins-Tjaden contributed 13 obituaries, and a biography
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| * Kris Murray
contributed 6 obituaries
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| * Mary
Kocak contributed an obituary
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| and, * Cindy Pickard contribute 21 obituaries | |
| In our spare time we have also started a Woodford County mailing list to keep y'all updated as to changes, and to give you a place to chat about things genealogical, or things just plain interesting. If you want to join, just E-mail me on the link toward the bottom of the Home Page. | |
| Many thanks for your great contributions. As this site picks up steam, I think we'll be creating a true genealogy source for Woodford County. | |
| Thanks again, Bill |
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| March 14, 2007 | |
| The following changes have been made in the last two hectic
days. The response has been terrific, and I thank you all.
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| Still badly needed--pictures of Woodford County people, places
and things
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| Many more contributions are in my "To-Do" file, awaiting
redesigned pages to handle them, especially the nearly 2,000
cemetery inscriptions. And Marie and Amy have given me lists
where the U.S. Government official listing of Woodford County
cemeteries is incorrect. (Wait until those other counties find out
that we now have their cemeteries.) Again, I can't thank you all enough. I'll catch up to you and your contributions soon. Bill |
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| March 12, 2007 | |
| The Woodford County site went on-line with the following
contributions:
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| There were many, many more contributions of cemetery pictures, biographies and old books which I'll acknowledge as we get them on-line. | |
| Needless to say, I owe a lot to both Amy and Janine. Without them this site might never have gotten off the ground. | |
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Current Updates |
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Copyright © 2007 Bill
Wilson & all Contributors
All rights reserved
Illinois Ancestors