Month: February 2022

Family Research Tips

February 24, 2022 Genealogy, Local History

Read all about it! Find your McHenry County ancestors in the newspaper

McHenry County early newspapers were filled with interesting tidbits that can help you fill in the details in your family history. From as early as 1846, with the Illinois Republican, McHenry County residents could read news from around the country and keep up with the affairs of the world around them. You may find your ancestor mentioned in society news, death notices or obituaries, articles about local businesses, politics, or court cases. Start by using general search terms, using just a surname within a range of dates, for example. Widen searches to other locations in the county or different surname spellings if you come up empty. Don’t forget to search for related surnames, and search in nearby towns or townships; you may find a relative that will help you connect your family lines to others in the area.

AAPLD offers patrons three databases that provide access to some of McHenry County’s earliest newspapers. The first newspaper in the county was the Illinois Republican. In 1854 it became the Republican Free-Press, and in 1856 became the Woodstock Sentinel, which still publishes today.
Go to Newspapers.com for these papers:

  • The Algonquin Herald – 1902 to 1910
  • The Sentinel (Woodstock) – 1860 to 1926.
  • Daily Sentinel (Woodstock) – 1922 to 1985.
  • Crystal Lake Herald – 1875 to 1963.
  • McHenry Plaindealer – 1875 to 1985. (Later merged with The Northwest Herald.)
  • Marengo Beacon/Republican – 1872 to 1986.
  • The Northwest Herald is available at Chicago Area Newspapers from 2005 to present day.

You will need your AAPLD library card and PIN to access these databases. From another library? Check with your library to find out how you can access early local newspapers.

Local History Notes

February 24, 2022 Genealogy, Local History

Naming the Village of Algonquin

The village was first known as Cornish’s Ferry, from Dr. A. B. Cornish, an early settler near the ford above mentioned [Crystal Lake inlet to the Fox River]. Later, when a considerable settlement had grown up, by vote of the inhabitants the name Osceola was adopted. But it was learned that there was already a town of the same name in the State. Therefore the choice of a permanent name was left to Mr. Edwards, the chief property owner in the village, and he chose the name which it now bears.

~From the 1885 History of McHenry County, p. 390.

Algonquin was the name of a ship Mr. Edwards once owned, according to the Village of Algonquin website. The name Algonquin became official on December 23, 1847.

These Local History Notes were transcribed from the History of McHenry County, Illinois: together with sketches of its cities, villages and towns, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens. The book was originally published in 1885, and reprint copies are available for use at the Algonquin Library.

Ask at the Adult Services desk for assistance in finding these and other local history materials.

Welcome back to Genealogy at AAPLD

February 23, 2022 Genealogy, Local History

Welcome back!
Beginning in April, join us for a monthly Genealogy Interest Group. Just getting started or stuck at a brick wall? This group is for you! Learn about genealogy topics and resources, and get help with your family research. Bring your genealogy questions and dig into the library’s online resources (and more!). Check the LIBRARY NEWSLETTER  for these programs and others!

Online resources
Check out these GENEALOGY RESOURCES available through AAPLD.
Some are available from home, while others are available in-library only.

In-library Research
Our special genealogy and local history collection provides books that will help you research your family and learn about the rich history of Algonquin and the surrounding area. Browse the collection and work on your family research in our Genealogy section in Adult Services. SEARCH THE CATALOG

Have questions?
Ask a Genealogy Librarian for help with genealogy questions.

Check out 2022 Oscar Nominated films!

February 17, 2022 Movies

Oscar season is here, and it's time to catch up on nominated films you may have missed. Catch some of this year's best movies and performances at no cost at all-- thanks to the power of your library card!

We've profiled the films in our collection that have received Oscar nods, and also included the categories in which they've been nominated. Click here to place a hold, or call the Adult Services department. Get the popcorn ready, it's showtime!

Available Now

Dune- Feature adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel about the son of a noble family entrusted with the protection of the most valuable asset and most vital element in the galaxy. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Production Design, Costume Design, Cinematography, Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Visual Effects, and Score

King Richard - Richard Williams is determined to write his two daughters, Venus and Serena, into the history books. Training on tennis courts in Compton, Richard shapes the girls' adamant commitment and intense intuition. Together, the Williams family defies the odds. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Will Smith), Best Supporting Actress (Aunjanue Ellis), Original Screenplay, Editing, and Best Original Song ("Be Alive")

The Eyes of Tammy Faye - An intimate look at the extraordinary rise, fall and redemption of televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Actress (Jessica Chastain), Makeup and Hairstyling.

Spencer - During her Christmas holidays with the royal family at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, Diana Spencer, struggling with mental health problems, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Prince Charles. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Actress (Kristen Stewart)

Encanto - A Colombian teenage girl has to face the frustration of being the only member of her family without magical powers. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Animated Feature, Score, and Song (Dos Oruguitas)

Luca- Set in a beautiful seaside town on the Italian Riviera, the original animated feature is a coming-of-age story about one young boy experiencing an unforgettable summer filled with gelato, pasta and endless scooter rides. Luca shares these adventures with his newfound best friend, but all the fun is threatened by a deeply-held secret: he is a sea monster from another world just below the water's surface. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Animated Feature

The Mitchells vs. the Machines - A quirky, dysfunctional family's road trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse and suddenly become humanity's unlikeliest last hope. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Raya and the Last Dragon - In a realm known as Kumandra, a re-imagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization, a warrior named Raya is determined to find the last dragon. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Cruella - Estella is a young and clever grifter who's determined to make a name for herself in the fashion world. She soon meets a pair of thieves who appreciate her appetite for mischief, and together they build a life for themselves on the streets of London. However, when Estella befriends fashion legend Baroness von Hellman, she embraces her wicked side to become the raucous and revenge-bent Cruella. (IMDB). Nominated for Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling.

Free Guy -In the extremely popular video game, Free City, a NPC named Guy learns the true nature of his existence when he meets the girl of his dreams, a human player. This player's interactions with Guy has massive affects on him, the game, and real world as they play it. (IMDB)  Nominated for Best Visual Effects

Four Good Days - A mother helps her daughter work through four crucial days of recovery from substance abuse. (IMDB). Nominated for Best Song (Somehow You Do).

No Time To Die - James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology. (IMDB) Nominated for Sound, Visual Effects and Best Song (No Time to Die).

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Shang-Chi, the master of weaponry-based Kung Fu, is forced to confront his past after being drawn into the Ten Rings organization. (IMDB) Nominated for Visual Effects.

Coming Soon!

These Oscar-nominated films have not yet been released on DVD and Blu-Ray, but they are on order. Place your hold now!

Belfast - A young boy and his working-class Belfast family experience the tumultuous late 1960s. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Kenneth Branagh), Best Supporting Actor (Ciaran Hinds), Best Supporting Actress (Judy Dench), Original Screenplay, Sound and Song (Down To Joy).

Licorice Pizza - The story of Alana Kane and Gary Valentine growing up, running around and going through the treacherous navigation of first love in the San Fernando Valley, 1973. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Paul Thomas Anderson), and Original Screenplay.

Nightmare Alley - An ambitious carny with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychiatrist who is even more dangerous than he is. (IMDB)  Nominated for Best Picture, Production Design, Costume Design, and Cinematography.

West Side Story -An adaptation of the 1957 musical, West Side Story explores forbidden love and the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.  (IMDB) Nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Supporting Actress (Ariana DeBose), Production Design, Costume Design, Cinematography, Sound

The Worst Person in the World -The chronicles of four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Original Screenplay, Best International Feature

Coming 2 America - The African monarch Akeem learns he has a long-lost son in the United States and must return to America to meet this unexpected heir and build a relationship with his son. (IMDB). Nominated for Makeup and Hairstyling.

House of Gucci - When Patrizia Reggiani, an outsider from humble beginnings, marries into the Gucci family, her unbridled ambition begins to unravel their legacy and triggers a reckless spiral of betrayal, decadence, revenge, and ultimately...murder. (IMDB) Nominated for Make-up and Hairstyling.

Spider-Man: No Way Home - With Spider-Man's identity now revealed, Peter asks Doctor Strange for help. When a spell goes wrong, dangerous foes from other worlds start to appear, forcing Peter to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man. (IMDB) Nominated for Visual Effects.

Flee - An animated documentary telling the true story about a man's need to confront his past in order to truly have a future. Amin arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Denmark from Afghanistan. Today, at 36, he is a successful academic and is getting married to his long-time boyfriend. A secret he has been hiding for over 20 years threatens to ruin the life he has built for himself. For the first time, he is sharing his story with his close friend. (IMDB). Nominated for Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, Best International Feature

Summer of Soul - Part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture, and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just 100 miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was never seen and largely forgotten--until now. The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension, and more. (IMDB) Nominated for Best Documentary

Cyrano - A man ahead of his time, Cyrano de Bergerac dazzles whether with ferocious wordplay at a verbal joust or with brilliant swordplay in a duel. But, convinced that his appearance renders him unworthy of the love of a devoted friend, the luminous Roxanne, Cyrano has yet to declare his feelings for her and Roxanne has fallen in love, at first sight, with Christian. (IMDB) Nominated for Costume Design.

Enjoy a Book by a Black Author

February 3, 2022 Uncategorized

February is Black History Month, and its a great time to enjoy a book by a Black author.

Whether it's a gripping mystery, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy, or thought-provoking literary fiction, there are plenty of talented authors writing what you love. We've profiled a few authors and a recent release by each one, and you can find lots more in our online catalogue. Or check out the Black History Month display in the Adult Services department, and be sure to pick up clues to our online Black History Month Scavenger Hunt. Return the completed form to the library by March 1 for a chance to win admission to Chicago's DuSable Museum.

Colson Whitehead

Raised in New York City, Harvard graduate Whitehead made his publishing debut in 1999. The Intuitionists brought him critical acclaim, but Whitehead's 2016 release The Underground Railroad made him a best-selling author. The novel reimagines the Underground Railroad as a literal railroad operating in secret throughout the Civil War-era South, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2017.

When Cora and Ceasar, two slaves on a cotton plantation, decide to escape on the railroad, things don't go as planned.  Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.  Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Jasmine Guillory

When San Francisco attorney Guillory took part in 2015's National Novel Writing Month, she didn't realize she was about to embark on a new career as a romance novelist. The draft she wrote in November 2015 became her 2018 debut novel The Wedding Date, which was a Library Reads selection.  The follow-up novel, The Proposal was a Reese's Book Club selection.

When Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend,  the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn't the hard part--they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans...

At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up--in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes.

AAPLD will host a virtual visit with Guillory on February 16, where she will share insights on the modern rom-com.  The talk will be moderated by Black author Morgan Rogers, debut author of Honey Girl.

Attica Locke

Attica Locke's mysteries and thrillers have earned her best-seller status and a nomination for the Edgar Award, one of the genre's top awards. A writer and producer with the television series Empire, she is equally adept at portraying New York's powerful and wealthy, and the hardscrabble rural towns of East Texas. This area, which Locke visited often as a child, is the setting for Bluebird Bluebird, the first book in  her Highway 59 series, featuring Texas Ranger Darren Matthews.

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules--a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. 
When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.
A rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.

Jacqueline Woodson

Award-winning author Woodson writes for multiple audiences-- children, young adults and adult readers. From an early age, she appreciated the power of the written word. In an interview with Publisher's Weekly, she recalls her older sister teaching her to write her name when she was three. "I remember writing my whole name: Jacqueline Amanda Woodson. I just loved the power of that, of being able to put a letter on the page and that letter meaning something." In her coming of age novel, Another Brooklyn she weaves a story of friendship with the reality of growing up as a Black girl in the 1970s.

Running into a long-ago friend sets memories from the 1970s in motion for August, transporting her to a time and a place where friendship was everything—until it wasn’t. For August and her girls, sharing confidences as they ambled through neighborhood streets, Brooklyn was a place where they believed that they were beautiful, talented, brilliant—a part of a future that belonged to them. But beneath the hopeful veneer, there was another Brooklyn, a dangerous place where grown men reached for innocent girls in dark hallways, where ghosts haunted the night, where mothers disappeared. A world where fathers found hope in religion and madness was just a sunset away.