Hi! I'm guessing that there were ads and people touting the great opportunities of Illinois just like the ads and people that came through the NY Finger Lakes area (where my father's family is from) that touted the great and fertile state of Michigan! And then, later on, the California advertisers were in Illinois, which is how my Graves (my mother's family) ended up there, touting the farm opportunities in the Southern portion of the state. People have to remember that the immigrants really held on to the idea that America was the place that they could own a piece of land, and come to prominence of their own hard work, rather than being born to it like in the old country. Most people today are too cynical to grasp this concept, but it would have been a large motivating factor to most of our immigrant relations. I, for one, would not be moving cross country today unless it came with a huge pay increase :-) Just a thought, Concetta