RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of Illinois >> Knox County >> Rio >> Genealogy HelperIndex...

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 Rio (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 Rio. 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 doctors and hospitals 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.

Rio is located in Knox 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 Knox County: Fulton, Henry, Mercer, Peoria, Stark & Warren.

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

  • Knox County     (The home county of Rio)
  • Fulton County
    • London Mills
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
  • Henderson County
  • Henry County
  • Mercer County
  • Peoria County
  • Rock Island County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rio, with the one closest to Rio listed first.
    • Reynolds
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northwest)
    • Coyne Center
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Coyne Center is located in Rock Island County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coyne Center
    • Oak Grove
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the northwest)
      • Oak Grove is located in Rock Island County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Oak Grove
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 585 people
    • Coal Valley
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
    • Taylor Ridge
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northwest)
    • Milan
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Carbon Cliff
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
    • Silvis
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Silvis is located in Rock Island County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Silvis
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 7,473 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Silvis <1>
    • Edgington
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
    • East Moline
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
      • East Moline is located in Rock Island County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for East Moline
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 20,473 people
    • Rock Island
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Rustic Acres
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the north)
    • Andalusia
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the northwest)
  • Stark County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rio, with the one closest to Rio listed first.
    • La Fayette
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the east)
    • West Jersey
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the east)
    • Toulon
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the east)
  • Warren County
  • Scott County (IA)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Rio, with the one closest to Rio listed first.
    • Bettendorf
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
    • Riverdale
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
      • Riverdale is located in Scott County (IA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Riverdale
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 398 people
    • Davenport
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
    • Panorama Park
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the north)
      • Panorama Park is located in Scott County (IA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Panorama Park
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 331 people
    • Buffalo
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
      • Buffalo is located in Scott County (IA)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Buffalo
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,257 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Buffalo <1>

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

Cemeteries Near Rio ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Rio.

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 Rio - one of the links might be able to help.

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Rio, with the one closest to Rio 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>

The Rand McNally Atlas shows that Rio had a population of 188 people in 1895 with a post office and railroad service. In 2020, Rio had a population of 205 people.

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

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

Newspapers Published in Rio ...

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 34 newspapers that have been published in the area around Rio.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Rio, there are papers which were published within 28 miles [45.1 km]<3>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Rio.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we first visit the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites either 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 Rio:

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>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.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Rio) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<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 Rio, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.