1949 Cattle Consignments

I continue to make the occasional discovery in the "Farm, Field, and Fireside" collection of digital agricultural newspapers at the University of Illinois website. This site digitally preserves a growing collection of agricultural publications.

Even those of us with "unfamous" ancestors and relatives may find a family member mentioned in print. It wasn't only the well-known whose names appeared in publications of this type.

This advertisement appeared in the 1949 issue of Wallace's Farmer. 

My grandfather, Cecil Neill, raised purebred Angus cattle (in fact entries under his name still appear in the American Angus Association website if one looks carefully). This advertisement indicated that Grandpa had one bull in the sale which was held at Colchester, Illinois.

One never knows what one will run across in trade publications of this type. In this case, the details aren't going to alter any theories about my family, but they would have confirmed he was alive and living near Carthage, Illinois, in early 1949 had I not known that. Grandpa is mentioned in a 1954 judging contest as well.

Are these clues big ones? No. But for those of us who aren't fortunate to have detailed diaries, letters, and the like--they are finds.

This specific breeder assocation was still having sales at least 40 years later. I remember attending them myself.