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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 Woodland (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 Woodland. 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 northwest corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals and doctors were in the next county to the west. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the north.

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 west contained birth and death records; the county to the north 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.

Woodland is located in Iroquois 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 Iroquois County: Ford, Kankakee, Vermilion, Benton (IN) & Newton (IN).

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

  • Iroquois County     (The home county of Woodland)
  • Champaign County
  • Ford County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodland, with the one closest to Woodland listed first.
    • Piper City
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Roberts
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
    • Paxton
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Melvin
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the west)
    • Kempton
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Kankakee County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodland, with the one closest to Woodland listed first.
    • Saint Anne
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Sammons Point
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)
      • Sammons Point is located in Kankakee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sammons Point
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 237 people
      • Sammons Point has also been known as:
      • Sammons Point village
    • Otto
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Aroma Park
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
    • Hopkins Park
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the north)
      • Hopkins Park is located in Kankakee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hopkins Park
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 608 people
      • Hopkins Park has also been known as:
      • Hopkins Park village
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Hopkins Park <1>
    • Irwin
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the northwest)
      • Irwin is located in Kankakee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Irwin
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 71 people
    • Kankakee
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
    • Sun River Terrace
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the north)
      • Sun River Terrace is located in Kankakee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Sun River Terrace
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 488 people
    • Limestone
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northwest)
      • Limestone is located in Kankakee County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Limestone
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 1,498 people
    • Herscher
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Livingston County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodland, with the one closest to Woodland listed first.
    • Chatsworth
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
    • Charlotte
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
    • Cullom
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the west)
  • Vermilion County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodland, with the one closest to Woodland listed first.
    • East Lynn
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • Hoopeston
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the south)
    • Rankin
      (19 miles [30.6 km] to the southwest)
    • Coalton
      (20 miles [32.2 km] to the south)
      • Coalton is located in Vermilion County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Coalton
    • Rossville
      (23 miles [37 km] to the south)
    • Alvin
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Henning
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Potomac
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the south)
    • Armstrong
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the south)
  • Benton County (IN)
  • Jasper County (IN)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodland, with the one closest to Woodland listed first.
    • Egypt
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the east)
    • Remington
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the east)
  • Newton County (IN)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodland, with the one closest to Woodland listed first.
    • Kentland
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the east)
    • Newton
      (18 miles [29 km] to the east)
      • Newton is located in Newton County (IN)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Newton
    • Beaver City
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Beaver City is located in Newton County (IN)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beaver City
    • Brook
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Brook is located in Newton County (IN)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Brook
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 941 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Brook <1>
    • Morocco
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
      • 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>
    • Goodland
      (23 miles [37 km] to the east)
    • Foresman
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Mount Ayr
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northeast)
  • Warren County (IN)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Woodland, with the one closest to Woodland listed first.
    • Pence
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the southeast)
    • Brisco ‑ Historic
      (28 miles [45.1 km] to the southeast)

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

Cemeteries Near Woodland ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Woodland.

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

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

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Woodland, with the one closest to Woodland 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.<3>

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

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

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

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Woodland ...

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 209 newspapers that have been published in the area around Woodland.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Woodland. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Woodland and those printed in the larger area surrounding Woodland.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 30 miles [48.3 km]<4> of Woodland.

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 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 Woodland:

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>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 Woodland, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a '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- Woodland) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.