hi, At one time it was common practice to have several towns of the same name in the state, and many towns and cities had former names with a few having had several, so if you have used a current map to find an old town name you may have created your very own brick walls or even worse you have connected with the wrong lines. "Bloomfield" is an excellent example of this common practice, just look at any current map and find it now in Johnson County close to Vienna, in 1958 it had a population of 80. Did you know there was another Bloomfield in Adams County? Close to Quincy, in 1958 it had a population of 25. There were others in Edgar, Fulton, Greene, Johnson and Scott Counties and all were spelled "Bloomfield." Plus precincts in Johnson and Scott Counties by the same name of "Bloomfield." Nine localities, all named "Bloomfield." Do you need more examples, maybe hundreds of examples? Sure hope you can easily see the point i am trying to make... many genealogies are out there now with improper connections because an inexperienced genealogist has picked the wrong county and matched up the wrong "SMITH" or "JONES" or "WHOEVER" because they thought they had the right county to chose from. Wrong connections are now made as the names that were available in that county were close so they figured a few misspellings or similar names would suffice. Or the town was the correct town but the county changed several times? Some still can't make the connection and are experienced enough to know that close doesn't always count, so they know they have hit a brickwall. My suggestion is that you jot down the towns your ancestors are known to have lived in and look them up on the statewide list of over 16,000 place names using your Ctrl/f keys to do the search. Copy down each county that each town appears in after the town name and you'll probably be amazed to find that instead of them moving all around the state they lived in a few neighboring counties. For details of when the town was active you could consult the web pages listed below for the 25 Northeast Counties as those are now online, the 44 South Counties will all details online by the end of this month, and the last 33 West Counties should have details online beginning this summer. When those new pages are up and running i'll send out an updated e-mail here and i'll post it on each Rootsweb county list as each county becomes available for research. BTW every fact is documented on every page. The following web pages are enormous and each will take over four minutes to download if your connection is a dial up modem and AOL is NOT busy and your computer is PROPERLY tuned. If you get a message that AOL is busy just rapidly tap on your reload button a few times and AOL wakes up and lets you in. It works for me as i use the IE browser instead of the AOL browser... here are the url's: <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/illinoygenealogy/myhomepage/writing.html"> Illinois Family History Research: Place Names of Each Illinois County</A> is a statewide list of over 16,000 towns, cities and townships known to have ever existed, grouped by county, covers all 102 counties. Each county now has "last updated date: brief description of the last update" at the beginning of each county listing. Each county has it's own listing of US Post Offices of 1859/60. For the 25 Northeast Counties and most of the 44 Southeast Counties, if a dash (-) after the name that indicates it is either obsolete or you won't find it on most current maps but it may appear on an older more detailed map, and as other counties are completed this will show on them as well. If i determined a listing was made either in error or it conflicts with other more reliable sources i've listed the source of information. This is the most complete list of its kind to be found anywhere. <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/illinoygenealogy/myhomepage/tv.html"> Illinois Family History Research: Place Names of the Northeast 25 Counties</A> is a detailed list of everything known about each town, city and township, with over 5567 listings. Each county now has "last updated date: brief description of the last update" at the beginning of each county listing. Each county has it's own listing of US Post Offices of 1859/60 as well as a listing of the 1876 RR's and the towns the RR ran through. When the list is complete, as the first 17 of the 25 counties are, the following will be listed on each town or city, if known, in this order: how it got it's name; former name; alias name; later name; present name; a dash (-) after the name indicates it is either obsolete or you won't find it on most current maps; the township the town or city is in; another county the town may overlap into; date of incorporation; elevation; railroad name of old and new; (Post Office history of: former name; when established and in which county; when discontinued; new name if changed; if active and the current zip); RFD in 1960 or 1990 mail to town; and 1990 population. For each township, if known: how it got its name; former name; later name; every town that has ever been in that particular township; currently the town that accepts mail for this township; and 1990 population. The following 17 counties are completely done: Boone, Champaign, De Kalb, De Witt, Ford, Grundy, Iroquois, Kankakee, LaSalle, Livingston, Logan, Marshall, McLean, Putnam, Tazewell, Vermilion, and Woodford. The following eight counties are not yet completely done, each has all towns and townships known to be in existence from before 1818 up to 1990, but lacks the inclusion of the 1876 atlas: Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, Will, and Winnebago and should be complete by the end of this month. (BTW Cook Co is complete only as far as A-P but should be complete by the end of this month) <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/dennisvcarter1/myhomepage/heritage.html"> Illinois Family History Research: Place Names of the Southeast 44 Counties</A> has just begun with the following recent county additions (# of place names): Alexander (119), Bond (115), Christian (112), Clay (71), Clinton (103), Coles (136), Crawford (82), Cumberland (77), Dane (0), Douglas (63), Edgar (136), Edwards (45), Effingham (96), Fayette (120) , Franklin (137), Gallatin (85), Hamilton (103), Hardin (53), Jackson (169), Jasper (79), Jefferson (122), Johnson (84), Lawrence (86), Macon (178), Macoupin (202), Marion (120), Massac (83), Menard (81), Monroe (125), Montgomery (157), Moultrie (65), Perry (100), Pope (134), Pulaski (78), and Randolph (178), each starting off with all towns, cities and townships known to have been in existence from before 1818 up to 1960. Later... current information, up to 1990, will follow in the summer or fall with over 5261 listings in total. <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/dcarter956/myhomepage/heritage.html"> Illinois Family History Research: Place Names of the 33 Western Counties</A> is in development and will begin early this summer, with over 5209 listings. Will start off with all towns, cities and townships known to be in existence from before 1818 up to 1960 and current information, up to 1990, will follow in the fall or winter. <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/livingstoncounty/myhomepage/tv.html"> Illinois Family History Research: Timeline for Genealogy</A> is from the year 1400 to present, a chronological history of Illinois, United States, Germanic, British, France, and other European countries, each of these events have a bearing on family history. This list has been designed to help you also study your other lines that lived outside Illinois and each of the several thousand entries has been cited with its own source, over two dozen sources cited, and links to "the rest of the story" in many cases. This is the most complete list of its kind to be found anywhere. <A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/livingstoncounty/myhomepage/business.html"> Livingston County, Illinois, Family History Research: Genealogy</A> is a master index of every family known to have lived in this county from 1831-1985. Several thousand surnames are listed alphabetically and each surname has each source cited, several hundred surnames have multiple sources cited, and 30 sources have so far been used. Many of these sources are online so you can easily confirm your suspicions of connections within a few minutes. Sources include records from biographies, cemetery, census, church, death, land and deed, marriages, military, etc., and a system is used so that by looking at the code following a surname you'll know the decade the record came from as well as the type of record and actual source. Many researchers from other states have found quickly found their missing connections from this index and i challenge other researchers to do this with a county of their choosing so others may quickly confirm their connections and be encouraged to research their roots. happy hunting dennis