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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Manteno (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Manteno. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Manteno is located in Kankakee County.

To see how the shape of Illinois' counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Kankakee County: Ford, Grundy, Iroquois, Livingston, Will, Lake (IN) & Newton (IN).

Below are the counties that are near Manteno. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Manteno:

  • Kankakee County     (The home county of Manteno)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Manteno, with the one closest to Manteno listed first.
    • Bradley
      (5 miles [8 km] to the south)
    • Saint George
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
    • Bourbonnais
      (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Grant Park
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the east)
      • Grant Park is located in Kankakee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Grant Park
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,231 people
    • Kankakee
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Momence
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
    • Sun River Terrace
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the southeast)
      • Sun River Terrace is located in Kankakee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sun River Terrace
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 488 people
    • Aroma Park
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the south)
    • Limestone
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the southwest)
      • Limestone is located in Kankakee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Limestone
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,498 people
    • Bonfield
      (13 miles [20.9 km] to the southwest)
    • Otto
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the south)
    • Litchfield
      (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southeast)
  • Cook County
  • Ford County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Manteno, with the one closest to Manteno listed first.
    • Cabery
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Kempton
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the southwest)
  • Grundy County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Manteno, with the one closest to Manteno listed first.
    • Diamond
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the west)
    • Braceville
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
    • Clarke City
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
      • Clarke City is located in Grundy County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Clarke City
    • Centerville ‑ Historic
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Centerville is located in Grundy County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Centerville
    • Central City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Central City is located in Grundy County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Central City
    • Coal City
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
    • East Brooklyn
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • East Brooklyn is located in Grundy County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Brooklyn
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 104 people
    • South Wilmington
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • South Wilmington is located in Grundy County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Wilmington
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 637 people
    • Carbon Hill
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
      • Carbon Hill is located in Grundy County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Carbon Hill
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 334 people
    • Channahon
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Gardner
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the west)
    • Minooka
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
  • Iroquois County
  • Livingston County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Manteno, with the one closest to Manteno listed first.
    • Cardiff
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the southwest)
    • Campus
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southwest)
  • Will County
  • Jasper County (IN)
  • Lake County (IN)
  • Newton County (IN)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Manteno, with the one closest to Manteno listed first.
    • Lake Village
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
      • Lake Village is located in Newton County (IN)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lake Village
    • Sumava Resorts
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the east)
    • Thayer
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the east)
    • Roselawn
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the east)
      • Roselawn is located in Newton County (IN)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Roselawn
    • Morocco
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the southeast)
      • Morocco is located in Newton County (IN)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Morocco
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,086 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Morocco <1>

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Manteno, see our County-by-County Page for Manteno.

Cemeteries Near Manteno ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Manteno.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Manteno - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Manteno covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Manteno, with the one closest to Manteno listed first.

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.<4>

While we didn't find Manteno in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Manteno.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Manteno, with the one closest to Manteno listed first.

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Manteno. See our List of 1890's Communities around Manteno.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Manteno ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 69 newspapers that have been published in the area around Manteno.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Manteno. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Manteno and those printed in the larger area surrounding Manteno.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 22 miles [35.4 km]<2> of Manteno.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we like to start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These helpful websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Manteno:

Footnotes ...

<1>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<2>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Manteno) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<4>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Manteno, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.