Selling Liquor in Tioga and Navigating Ancestry's Images

This started out as a post about a liquor dealer in rural Illinois. It has been converted to a discussion on using the Civil War era Internal Revenue Assessment Lists at Ancestry.com

The 1864 Internal Revenue Service  Assessment Lists indicates that my step-3rd great grandfather, Conrad Haase was a retail liquor dealer in Tioga, Illinois. His entry is fairly simple:

• Conrad Haase, Tioga, "retail liquor dealer," tax $20.00
• Haase's entry is from page 59 of division 4, collection district 4, in the State of Illinois. Dated (May) 1864 this district was apparently "southern" Hancock County, Illinois, as towns in the district included Hamilton, Warsaw, Wythe[sic], Augusta, Tioga, Chili, and others in the southern portion of the county.

I've not found a map of the district--and am not certain it's all that necessary at this point. The microfilm may contain a more detailed description of the districts. However, Ancestry.com appears to only have included the lists in their digital images. There does not appear to be any prefatory material from the microfilm included in the digital images.

While I have only looked at the Illinois items, I'm tempted to think that Ancestry.com's digitization of these materials was done in a similar fashion for all states.

The National Archives website indicates that microfilm publication M764 (Internal Revenue Assessment lists for the State of Illinois--coming from Records of the Internal Revenue Service--Record Group 58) contains 63 rolls of microfilm, covering the state of Illinois as broken down into 13 districts. The NARA bibliography is more descriptive than the "roll title" at Ancestry.com which is shown below in the right hand side of this screen shot.

Ancestry.com's "Roll Title" does not list the districts in precise numerical order. It appears instead to have sorted the roll titles "alphabetically," explaining why the districts appear as 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, instead of in exact "counting" order. That's a minor problem. There is no indication on the "roll title" list which parts of Illinois are included in which district. That information is on the NARA description of microfilm content as shown later in this blog post.

Ancestry.com only includes the "actual" tax lists in their digital images--not the prefatory material that typically appears on NARA microfilm. That's a personal frustration. I would prefer to actually "view the microfilm" online--the entire roll. It is fine that the database entry takes me directly to the page of interest, but I would appreciate having the entire roll of microfilm online.

The National Archives website provides a more detailed description of the 63 rolls of Internal Revenue Assessment Lists from 1862-1866 as shown below:

Illinois, 1862-1866. M764. 63 rolls.

Type of Roll		List		Counties		Dates
District 1
1		A		Cook		1862, 1863
2		M		"		Sept. 1862-Dec. 1863
District 2
3		A		Boone, De Kalb,		1862-64
				Kane, Lake,
				McHenry,
				Winnebago
4		S		"		1864
		A		"		1865
5		M, S		"		1864
6		M, S		"		1865
7		M, S		"		1866
District 3
8		A		Carroll, Jo		1862-64
				Daviess, Lee, Ogle,
				Stephenson,
				Whiteside
9		S		"		1864
		A		"		1865-66
10		M, S		"		1864
11		M, S		"		1865-66
District 4
12		A		Adams, Hancock,		1863-65
				Henderson, Mercer,
				Rock Island,
				Warren
		S		"		1865
13		A		"		1866
14		M, S		"		June 1863-Dec. 1864
15		M, S		"		Jan.-Dec. 1865
16		M		"		1866
District 5
17		A		Bureau, Henry,		1863-64
				Knox, Marshall,
				Peoria, Putnam,
				Stark
		S		"		1864
18		A		"		1865
19		A		"		1866
20		M		"		Sept. 1862-Dec. 1863
21		M		"		Jan.-Sept. 1864
22		M, S		"		Oct. 1864-June 1865
23		M, S		"		July 1865-Mar. 1866
24		M, S		"		Apr.-Dec. 1866
District 6
25		A		Du Page, Grundy,		1863-65
				Kankakee, Kendall,
				La Salle, Will
		S		"
26		M		"		Sept. 1862-Nov. 1863
27		M, S		"		Jan. 1864-Apr. 1865
28		M, S		"		May-Dec. 1865
		M		"		Jan.-Apr. 1866
29		A		"		1866
		M, S		"		May-Dec. 1866
District 7
30		S		Champaign, Coles,		1862
				Cumberland,
				Douglas, Edgar,
				Ford, Iroquois,
				Macon, Moultrie,
				Piatt, Vermilion
		M		"		Oct. 1862-Dec. 1863
31		A, M		"		1864
		S		"		1863-64
32		A, M, S		"		1865
33		A, M, S		"		1866
District 8
34		A		De Witt,		1862-64
				Livingston, Logan,
				McLean, Sangamon,
				Tazewell,
				Woodford
		M, S		"		Nov., Dec. 1862
35		A		"		1865
36		A, M		"		1866
37		M		"		1863
38		M		"		1864
39		M		"		1865
District 9
40		A		Brown, Cass,		1863
				Fulton, McDonough
				Mason, Menard,
				Pike, Schuyler
		M		"		May 1863-Apr. 1864
41		A		"		1864
		M, S		"		May 1864-May 1865
42		A		"		1865
		S		"		Sept. 1864-Apr. 1866
43		M		"		Sept. 1862-Apr. 1863
		M, S		"		June 1865-Apr. 1866
District 10
44		A, S		Bond, Calhoun,		1863-64
				Christian, Greene,
				Jersey, Macoupin,
				Montgomery,
				Morgan, Scott,
				Shelby
45		A		"		1865-66
46		M		"		Sept. 1862-Dec. 1863
47		M, S		"		1864-65
48		M		"		1866
District 11
49		A		Clark, Clay,		1863-66
				Crawford,
				Effingham, Fayette,
				Franklin, Hamilton
				Jasper, Jefferson,
				Lawrence, Marion,
				Richland, Wayne
50		A, M , S		"		Sept. 1862-Feb. 1863
		M, S		"		Mar.-Dec. 1863
51		M, S		"		1864
52		M, S		"		1865
53		M, S		"		1866
District 12
54		A		Clinton, Madison,		1862
				Monroe, Randolph,
				St. Clair,
				Washington
		M, S		"		Sept. 1862-Feb. 1865
55		M, S		"		1865
56		M, S		"		1866
57		A		"		1863-64
		S		"		1863
58		A		"		1864-65
59		A, S		"		1865-66
District 13
60		A		Alexander,		1862-66
				Edwards, Gallatin,
				Hardin, Johnson,
				Massac, Perry,
				Pope, Pulaski,
				Saline, Union,
				Wabash, White
				Williamson
		S		"		1864
61		M		"		Sept. 1862-Oct. 1864
62		M		"		Nov. 1864-Dec. 1866
63		S		"		Aug. 1864-Dec. 1866

If I want to make certain I've found every reference to Conard--and not just the ones that come up "easy" on my searches at Ancestry.com, I'll have to search all the years for district 4 which includes Hancock County where Conrad lived.

For my other people of interest in other locations, I'll determine what district their county of residence is located in and search those entries manually for years where searches do not turn up the person of interest. I will also find it helpful to have the NARA descriptions of the film at my disposal instead of the roll listing provided by Ancestry.com.

I like having the images available at my disposal. I'm not so happy about how Ancestry.com chose to digitize this microfilm.

Readers with individuals in other states covered by these records may wish to follow a similar research strategy.