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Effingham County Genealogy |
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Welcome to the Effingham County, Illinois Genealogy web site. My name is Linda (Kralman) Lambert. Even though I live in Arizona now (about 50 miles northwest of Phoenix) and have been here since 1972, I adopted the Effingham County GenWeb site in the spring of 1997. I was raised and educated in Teutopolis (3 miles east of Effingham). I graduated from Teutopolis High School in 1960. My family still lives in Effingham and Teutopolis, and my roots remain deeply embedded in Effingham County.
This site is part of the ILGenWeb Project
which is a part of the USGenWeb
Project.
Effingham County NEEDS VOLUNTEERS to do lookups. If you own or have access to any Effingham County reference books (such as census, cemetery, marriage, obituaries, newspaper abstracts, etc.) and would be willing to do lookups for other Effingham County researchers, then please contact me.
Do You Know Why.......
Do you know why.............I provide links to so many places instead of posting the information here? It's because I want the people who do the work to get the credit for it. If I posted it here, even though I put their name on it, it could be construed that I did the work when I actually did not.
As someone whose work has been "stolen" and posted on other sites without credit, I am extremely sensitive to this issue. I would rather be criticized for providing links than let anyone think I am "stealing" their work.
So now you know why............
MAILING LIST FOR EFFINGHAM COUNTY
You can subscribe to the list in mail mode by sending an
e-mail
message to:
[email protected]
that contains only the word "subscribe" in both the subject line and in
the
body of the
email
(without the quotes).
After sending your subscription request to the list you will receive a message with the subject of “Complete your Subscription to ILEFFING-L-request” letting you know that we received a request to subscribe your email address to the mailing list and asking you to click on a link that will lead you to the confirmation page. The confirmation page has two options, “Cancel my subscription request” and “Subscribe to list ILEFFING-L-request”. On this page you also have the choice of selecting whether you would like to receive digests.
You can subscribe to the list in mail mode by sending an
e-mail
message to:
[email protected]
that contains only the word "subscribe" in both the subject line and in
the
body of the email
(without the quotes).
After sending your subscription request to the list you will receive a message with the subject of “Complete your Subscription to IL-TEUTOPOLIS-L-request” letting you know that we received a request to subscribe your email address to the mailing list and asking you to click on a link that will lead you to the confirmation page. The confirmation page has two options, “Cancel my subscription request” and “Subscribe to list IL-TEUTOPOLIS-L-request”. On this page you also have the choice of selecting whether you would like to receive digests.
EFFINGHAM COUNTY HISTORY
Effingham County was formed in 1831 from Fayette and Crawford counties.
Effingham County (as well as the county seat, Effingham) was named after a British nobleman, Lord Edward Effingham, who resigned his commission as general in the British army in 1775, refusing to serve in the war against the colonies. (Information courtesy of Jon N. Austin, Executive Director of The Illinois State Historical Society. From Origin and Evolution of Illinois Counties published by the Illinois Secretary of State, 1994).
There is a growing belief that the county was named after General Edward Effingham. He was a surveyor in Effingham County and served with General Ewing in the Blackhawk War. It seems that it was a common practice to name communities and counties after the surveyors who surveyed them.
So.....there are two possibilities to account for the origin of Effingham County's name as well as the city of Effingham's name.
Effingham County traces its roots back to 1814, when the first pioneers settled along the Little Wabash River. For the next 40 years, this area witnessed little growth, adding population only when a farm family journeying west along the old Cumberland Trail stopped to work for a living in the rich prairie soil.
When the railroad came in the early 1850's, the sleepy farming area changed. Stores and hotels opened as the county's first "boom" took place. The first name of the community located on the ground where Effingham now stands was Wehunka, named for an Indian chief whose followers had located here. The name was changed from Wehunka to Ewington and then to Broughton (not to be confused with Broughton in Hamilton County). In 1859, the village of Broughton was made the county seat and its name was changed to Effingham. The second "boom" in 1959 took place when the Interstate Highway System was formed. The city of Effingham is located at the intersection of I-57 and I-70 and has become a hub for America's motoring public.
Effingham County---the
"Crossroads
of America"
EFFINGHAM COUNTY SPECIAL
EVENTS
Information
needed and
welcomed!!!!!!!
If you know of anything that is genealogy or history related that you would like included here, please contact me This means genealogy workshops, genealogy seminars, family reunions, school reunions, family anniversaries (particularly 25th and 50th anniversaries), church picnics, genealogy software classses, (anything related to genealogy), genealogy society meetings, genealogy software user group meetings, historical tours, etc.
Send me your information (use the link above) so that I can add it. Don't you think this would be a good way to reach those long-lost cousins? Perhaps they would attend......(it's worth a try, don't you think?)Location: Effingham County Courthouse Square, Effingham, Illinois
Time: 11 AM to 3 PM
Bring your lawn chair and come enjoy a history-filled fun family day.
EFFINGHAM COUNTY
Surnames/Queries
Submit Queries
-- If you change email addresses without notifying
me, the chances are very good that your entire query will be deleted.
In that case, you must resubmit your query with a current email
address. In addition to submitting a query here, you may find it
helpful to post
your query to the
Effingham County Mailing List (see instructions above).
Subscribers to this mailing list
will receive your posting minutes after you hit "send". This may
give you a faster response.
Your query will be posted to the GenWeb page when I do the next
update.
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Read Queries |
Submit Surnames -- If I am notified that an email address is no longer valid, I will remove that entire surname entry. If you find that this has happened, you must resubmit your surname with a current email address.
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Reference & Lookup Volunteers
Includes information about the Effingham County Genealogical and Historical Society and their publications for sale. Link to ECGHS membership form. Please note that even though I include information about the ECGHS and am a member, I am not the contact person for the Society. You will need to contact them directly (information on page). I include this information about the Society as a courtesy.
Cemetery books for sale from the Effingham County DAR chapter are also listed on this page.
Information about the Effingham County Clerk's office is included in this section.![]()
Did You Know ... An Alphabetical List of Cemeteries (including nearest town and the township); Tips and Hints to Make Your Research Easier; Meanings of Old Tombstone Carvings; Importance of Military Records, etc. Don't miss the work-in-progress list of Civil War Veterans (both North & South) buried in Effingham County.
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Then and Now..... Don't overlook this section, which contains various tidbits of information that may break down some of the bricks in your research brick wall. (e.g., Diseases/Causes of Death; Occupations; Time Line for Effingham County; and The New Time Line for Wars, Epidemics and Natural Disasters, Effingham County Poor Farm, etc.)
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Effingham.com ![]()
Civil War Regiments/Companies of Illinois ![]()
Effingham County in the Civil War ![]()
Political Graveyard - Effingham County ![]()
Perkins' History, Lore and Maps of Effingham County ![]()
Effingham County and National Road Museum ![]()
Veterans Affairs National Cemetery System ![]()
Recent Effingham County Obituaries (Link to Effingham Daily News)
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Clay County, Illinois ![]()
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Cumberland County, Illinois ![]()
Fayette County, Illinois ![]()
Jasper County, Illinois ![]()
Shelby County, Illinois ![]()
Illinois County Boundaries 1790 - Present
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ILGenWeb Map