Margarette, There may be a way to identify the exact location of some of these extremely early churches like Island Grove, but the only way I have thought of so far is to identify where the people lived who were members. In the case of Island Grove, we don't know the name of a single person who was a member of the church before it dissolved in 1828. There may be a clue in some of the oldest church minutes of its sister churches if we look hard enough. I just wanted to point out to you that there was an Island Grove church which was born and died before the one you mentioned. There was a lot of upheaval among the Baptists in this area at this early date over the mission system. The final decision was made in 1832 in a session of the Sangamon Association held at the New Salem Church at Lincoln's New Salem. We have the minutes of 1823 (partial), 1828, 1830, 1831, and 1832 and most years thereafter. We do not know even where the Association convened in the years 1824, 1825 and 1827. We know it was held at Lick Creek in 1823 and again in 1826. Robert Webb On Thu, 23 Nov 2000 11:07:47 EST MaggeD@aol.com writes: > I have read the Life on Sugar Creek book. It was great. I grew up > near that > area. > > The townships in Sangamon Co. were not formed until much later than > you are > talking of, so who knows what they called Island Grove in the > 1820's. When > the townships were formed Island Grove TWP was larger than it is now > and also > contained what is New Berlin TWP. > > Margarette > > > ==== ILSANGAM Mailing List ==== > Search for a Sangamon County Marriage 1879-1881, includes age, > residence at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ilsangam/marr1879.htm > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.