The first visit to a courthouse is always a bit stressful for me. It's hard to know what to expect. I will expect a security scanner and my little pocket knife will need to stay in the car. Will the people be friendly or stress out? Will the records be open or hard to get to? Have some of the records gone to other facilities?
First, I need to be sure I'm headed to the right county, so I define the time frame and current county. I want to research 1855 to 1880 in Decatur, Macon County, Illinois.
In what county was Decatur during those years? There are many ways to check, but a fast check on Wikipedia tells me that Macon County was formed in 1829 from Shelby County, and the Macon County boundaries were finalized in 1843.
So only the Macon County records need to be searched for those years.
This is one place I've never yet hit. I know I will need to one of these days.
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