[Genealogy] Your Real Name and Finding the Prairie

[Michael John Neill]

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Genealogy Update 10 May 2026

** Your Real Name
** AI for Genealogy
** Finding the Prairie
** 2026 Brick Wall Busters

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Your Real Name
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Do you use your “real” name? Or do you use a diminutive based upon your
first or middle name? Do you use a nickname?

In the notes section of your genealogy software indicate why you used the
name you did. Future genealogists and relatives might like to know why you
used it.

I have always used Michael, never “Mike.” This is largely because my family
always called me Michael and mother always said “if I had wanted him called
‘Mike’ I would have named him ‘Mike.'”. And I always thought Mike Neill
sounded too short to be an actual name–at least to my ears–probably the
result of being half German where every name needs to be somewhat long and
have a lot of consonant sounds.

I started using my middle name because when I started my job, there was
another guy in town named “Mike Neal” who was always getting arrested for
one various thing or another. That was a way of distinguishing myself.

I know my great-grandmother Neill never used her “real” name of Francis–she
used Fannie on everything, Francis appears ONLY on her birth record.

But jot this sort of thing down in your genealogy notes. Someone in a
hundred years may want to know and you won’t be around to tell them.

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Finding the Prairie
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The location of places whose names may be less than official can sometimes
be difficult.

In “Newspaper May Give What the Marriage Record May Not,
<https://rootdig.genealogytipoftheday.com/?p=5439>” a place name of Prairie
Precinct was given as the location for the 1849 marriage of Asa Landon and
Mary Sargent in Winnebago County, Illinois. Marriage licenses in Illinois
were county-specific in 1849, so the reference to Prairie Precinct should
be to a location in Winnebago County.

At this point, I’m not certain if the reference to Prairie Precinct is to
an actual location with clearly defined boundaries or to a general area
without boundaries that was referred to as “Prairie Precinct” by the
locals. What I need is a directory of place names for Illinois on my
reference shelf (either *Place Names of Illinois
<http://amzn.to/2xDsKXm>* [University
of Illinois Press] or *Illinois Place Names* <http://amzn.to/2yDIIPT> [Illinois
State Historical Society]). The problem is that some “places” are informal
ones that are not easily located in any printed reference. That may or may
not be the case with Prairie Precinct. It could be that it is a
governmental unit that existed in 1849 but does not exist any longer. It
may or may not be easy to find on a printed map. It could also be a mailing
address of sorts and records of post offices from the National Archives may
help <https://www.archives.gov/research/post-offices>.

As an exercise, I searched for “Prairie Precinct” in newspapers at
*GenealogyBank
<https://www.genealogybank.com/1709GT> *to determine if I could find any
other reference to the location in newspapers from Rockford, Illinois,
around the time that Asa Landon and Mary Sargent were married.  There were
several.

One was for a stray cow that had been lost by a Jonathan Page whose is
styled as a “subscriber in Prairie Precinct.” His ad appeared in the *Rockford
Forum* on 7 November 1849.

Asa Landon, Hiram Lake (who married Landon) and Jonathan Page are all
enumerated in Owen Township in the 1850 census for Winnebago County,
Illinois.  Lake and Landon are on the same census page and Page is listed a
handful of households later. I still don’t have a precise location of where
Prairie Precinct is, but it would be reasonable to conclude that it
includes all or part of Owen Township.





I still have work to do and would like to locate a map, but the newspapers
combined with the census has given me a good start.

The place name books referenced above may end up being helpful and I still
need to look for a contemporary map. The problem is that often maps for
this era can be difficult to find and, as mentioned earlier, it’s possible
that the “Precinct” was really an area with fluid boundaries known only to
locals.
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Brick Wall Busters 2026 is here!!
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Handout included. Presentation made by Michael John Neill.

Michael has forty years of research experience in families throughout the
United States. Presentation is based on his personal experience and
consultations he has made to clients on research trips and via virtual
consultations.


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------------------------------------
Michael John Neill
Genealogy Tip of the Day
PO Box 17, Henderson, IL 61439
http://www.genealogytipoftheday.com
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