County Histories and Atlases
The Rockford Library has microfilm copies of most Illinois county history books, along with some plat books, on the second floor. These are on reels and arranged alphabetically, by county. Toward the back of some of these plat books and atlases are drawings of local farms, houses, and even people. Most books contain a list of names of people who ordered the book in advance, showing their places of residence, occupations, where they were born, and the year they moved to the county. Rockford Library's collection of books of this nature is so large I can't even begin to cover it.
The Belvidere Library have five large spiral notebooks, with family group sheets for every family that showed up on the 1840 Boone County census. Families of early pioneers are also included. They have two typed lists summarizing the contents of the genealogy cabinet and the back room vault area. Belvidere Library's collection has vast amounts of information and even covers adjoining counties. There is a large blue-green spiral notebook in the cabinet with lots of information and indexes that I've been able to compile over the past 20+ years-- hundreds of items. As with the Rockford collection, there's just too much for me to cover here.