Mountain Press and Southern Genealogy Books
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Sometimes, you find your ancestor on either the tax list or the census, but not on both even though you know that they were there at that time. One of the tricks I have used is to compare the two, a tax list about the time as the census. A transcriber frequently does not do both of these records and the reading of the names can vary. By a comparison of the two, you might discover that your ancestor is present on both. In looking at the tax list, you…
Read MoreIn doing genealogical research, we often ignore the sources where we will find the information because we think it is too difficult to locate. The Court of Pleas and Quarterly Sessions as some states call them, is one of those sources. In every state and every county, there is an organization established to handle the day to day matters of that area. It is called by different names, but the actions are pretty much the same. A world of important records is found in their minutes with notations that are…
Read MoreThe major problem with everyone’s “brick walls” in genealogy is a lack of resources. One of the least used bits of information is the Draper Manuscripts. This is a collection of information that was collected in the early to mid-nineteenth century by Lyman C. Draper [1815-1891]. Lyman Draper was a lifelong student of the history of America at an early period. He started out collecting information about the early American Revolutionary War heroes, many of whom were still alive at the time he began. His area of search was the…
Read MoreDoes your library have everything that you want and need for your research? If the answer is yes to this question, let me know as I want to use that library. In all likelihood, you have answered no to the question. Even Salt Lake or the National Archives do not have everything necessary for complete research. Most all of us have to depend on getting our information from some other source than our local library. One way to get this information is through the interlibrary loan process. In the interlibrary…
Read MoreNone of us want to think about our ancestors being involved in such things as a divorce. It happened early on and it is still happening today. However, the method of handling a divorce and the judgment rendered is a subject of discussion. From the beginning of Tennessee and before that in North Carolina, divorces were handled by the Superior Court of Law and Equity at least until 1809. Before this time in Tennessee, there were few court systems in place to handle any type of action so it fell…
Read MoreIn the early 1950s, I started doing research on my Mother’s family. At that time, there were no computers to consult, no microfilm available to me, and no xerox machines to make copies. If I wanted a copy of a document, I had to have a photographic copy made by someone with more than a Brownie Hawk Eye camera to get the close up image of the page. Needless to say, much of my early research went undocumented. Besides all of the above, I had never even heard of a…
Read MoreIt is said that there are only two things certain in this life – death and taxes. We all say this in jest, but then we know they are true. Paying taxes has been a way of life since most of us came onto the earth. We also find taxation in the Bible as a part of their life as well. In the field of genealogy, the tax listings of an area are one of those often overlooked resources. They are not always easy to find, and in most cases,…
Read MoreWe have all had the experience of looking for our ancestor and being unable to find them in the record we are searching. We know they were there at the time, so why aren’t they listed? They say the best way to hide something is in plain sight. Many times our ancestor is hiding in plain sight and we just have to discover their hiding place. The first thing to do is to verify our records and make sure they should be in this place at this particular time. Nearly…
Read MoreWhen one suspects they have Cherokee blood in their back ground, the first thing I usually hear is that they are descendant from a Cherokee Princess. It is always interesting when I hear that since there were not any “Cherokee Princesses”. The females might have been the daughter of a chief, but that does not make them a Princess. This point aside, many do trace some part of their ancestry back to the Native Americans. Tracing Native American history involves unique approaches with a total different way of thinking. First,…
Read MoreThe 1940 Census is now available and it is free to anyone who needs it. This comes as good news to the avid researcher; however, there is a bad side to it. You know that all things in life come with good news and bad news. First, we will start with the bad news of this release. To begin your search of the 1940 Census, you have to have the Enumeration District number. The full index of the census is not completed as yet since volunteers from around the world…
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