A Southern Illinois Heritage

This web page is a little spot on the net where I hope to help trace the genealogy of several families that migrated to Williamson County, Illinois in the early 1800s. These families were descendants of Henry Norman of North Carolina, his sons David, Jonathan and Soloman, George Baker of North Carolina who married Cazair Mulwee of Ireland, Jesse Mann and Elizabeth Stroud from Virginia, Jimmy Thaxton from Virginia, Abraham Sanders and Jerusha Hopkins from Benton County Tennessee and the Mullins family from Kentucky and Illinois. Also the Baker line has been researched through Tamsen Rodden Baker back to the Rodden family of Essex County, Virginia. Benjiman Jackson Rodden, son of Mary Jackson and John Rodden, married Keziah Williamson.

Migrating first through Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, these adventuresome people settled a new frontier as wild as nature would allow. The beauty of "Little Egypt" as Southern Illinois would later become known as, was what first brought these pioneers to this land between the rivers. The fertile soil, coal and local people is what kept them there. From these families sprang judges, businessmen, doctors, lawyers and farmers who tamed and founded the new county of Williamson.

It is difficult to try and envision what these people were like, but one can visualize their log homes, horses, churches that served as a place of worship as well as their center for social life in the small communities. The small settlements grew by stages into towns, with brick buildings and wooden sidewalks that gave way to super highways and shopping malls that link them to each other and the rest of the world. Some like Cottage Home, Bakers Crossing and Atilla didn't grow into towns. They became areas of land that hide ancient cemeteries and old church foundations. But the people do live on in the generations that have followed. Maybe these links to the past can somehow instill some reverence for our ancestors.