Genealogy Research & Education

Texas General Land Records. http://www.glo.state.tx.us/

Texas State Archives and Manuscripts:  http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/arc/

Board of Land Management:   http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/

Court, land and Probate Records    http://www.genealogy.org/category.asp?cat=court

 

TITHE APPLOTMENT: IRELAND

The Tithe Applotment books were compiled between 1823 and 1837 in order to determine the amount which occupiers of agricultural holdings should pay in tithes to the Church of Ireland (the main Protestant church, and the church established by the State until its dis-establishment in 1871). There is a manuscript book for almost every parish, giving the names of occupiers, the amount of land held and the sums to be paid in tithes. The books for Northern Ireland are in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) but there are microfilm copies in the National Archives.

 

MARKS AND BRANDS:

Place People through Marks and Brands. Find their land location, etc:

Marks appear on the ear of the animal. The Marks and Brands books are in the courthouse. In McKinney, they are in the County Clerks’ Office. In other counties they may be in the Veteran’s Office.

See: Handbook of Texas: www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/auc1.html

 

 

MILITARY:

I found in an antique newspaper that George Washington was my ancestor’s neighbor. I began to look at articles on our first president. Sure enough, I found that my ancestor was Washington’s chief surveyor. My ancestor owned and operated a mill along Three-Mile Run in Virginia. During one tight economic period, he asked Washington if he could borrow some money. In reading Washington’s diary I found Washington noted that John had paid back the loan in full. While tromping down the banks of Three-Mile Run, my husband and I found a small monument marking John’s mill put there by the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The previous story gives my ancestor a personality, done through searching historical documents of the area around John’s home and farm. I found the newspaper in the library of that county as well as Washington’s diary. I found the little marker along the creek bank while walking on John’s land, while seeing the same birds, bugs and critters as he saw when he was alive. Giving an ancestor a personality is very gratifying.

 

Search Revolutionary War Rolls. See images of the actual regimental rolls from the National Archives.  They are being put online through the joint project of National Archives and Footnote.com.

Search the images to see if your ancestors' records have been added yet.  If they are not be sure to check back since this is an in-process project.  Footnote.com is in the process of working with the National Archives to put images of these records online to be searched.  

Search Revolutionary War Service Records, 1775-83: The Footnote database is a collection of records kept by the National Archives listing men who fought for the colonies during the war. This database contains only those records available in the National Archives and may not include all persons involved in the American Revolutionary War. 

Compiled Military Service Records (CMSR) Each volunteer soldier has one Compiled Military Service Record (CMSR) for each regiment in which he served.

Soldiers’ and Sailors’ book: The County Soldiers’ and Sailors’ book in McKinney is in the County Clerks’ Office, but in Wichita Falls it is in the courthouse, but the collection is in the Veterans’ Department. I have never seen pictures of WWI soldiers in McKinney, but in Wichita Falls their books contain a picture and brief biography of the soldier. Inside the books are the discharge papers and it gives a physical description and lists all battles in which he served.

Search Revolutionary War Officers at Ancestry/Footnote.

Southern Campaign Revolutionary War Statements and Rosters has transcribed original records. If you have a pension record and it is not on the site, transcribe your ancestor’s record and submit it. http://southerncampaign.org/pen/index.htm.

Revolutionary War Rolls, service records, war officers.  www.Footnote.com

1840 Census of Pensioners: http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/
Historical_Publications/1840/1840.pdf. The 1840 census asks if there is anyone in the household who served in the Revolutionary War. If there is, you can learn the name of the soldier, physical health, relationship, etc.

Original Civil War Slave Census: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/singles/h1861p210.htm

Tennessee Questionnaires relating to Civil War soldiers: http://tracingourroots.weebly.com/march-1.html. I can’t stress how important these are, and they are located in the Tennessee Library and Archives. See: Tennessee Archives, March 1, 2009, http://tracingourroots.weebly.com/march-1.html.

Colonial Wars: http://www.usahistory.info/colonial-wars/.

Florida Confederate Pension Files:  http://www.floridamemory.com/Collections/
PensionFiles/index.cfm. In time I hope most states will digitize their Confederate pension files. The Florida pension files are important because so many served from the state of Georgia but registered in Florida. This is true of the counties along the border line between the two states.

Military Files:   http://aad.archives.gov/aad/

U.S. Compiled Revolutionary War Military Service Records, 1775-1783: Ancestry.com

Returns from U.S. Military Posts, 1800-1916: at Ancestry.

 

NATURALIZATION:

Ancestry is slowly uploading the naturalizations to the Internet. It is a slow process because naturalization papers are filed in many places. Finding and gathering all these in one place and indexing and digitizing is a job!

Information you need to know about naturalizations refers mainly to those applied and granted before 1906. They may be found in any court of record on a local, state, federal level, criminal or marine courts.

For a while after 1906 these were sometimes filed the federal courts, but some local courts continued processing them. I tell you this so you will know that looking in one place and not finding papers does not mean they won’t be in another court of record.

Many different forms were used to collect varying amounts of information from one court to another. The person may file in one place, submit in another and receive the certificate of naturalization in yet another. The Basic Naturalization Act was passed in September 1906 which turned the whole process over to the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, but now the U.S. Citizenship an Immigrations Services. Today, those forms are uniform.

1. Declarations of Intention are the first papers and usually filed for soon after coming into the States.

2. Petitions, also called second papers and final papers, were submitted to the court after the residency requirements are met.

3. Certificates of Naturalization have the name of the person, the court presenting the certificate, and the date it was issued. The status of the individual was asked in the 1900-1930 censuses. The code used in the 1920 census to denote the residency follows:

Na. – naturalized
Pa. – first papers filed
Al. – alien

The 1870 census asked whether a male citizen of the U.S. and over 21.

 

Derivative citizenship is another type of citizenship. It was granted to wives and children of naturalized men. These were granted from 1790-1922. If a woman from another country married a US citizen, she automatically became a citizen. But, would you believe it is the other way around when a female US citizen married an alien man? Yes, she lost her citizenship. You must refer to the many different rules for the different decades for all the changes.

Go to www.Ancestry.com, then Card Catalog under Search; Naturalization.

For informative how-to articles click on Learning Center, then Article Archives.

U.S. Naturalization Records Indexes 1794-1995.  Ancestry.com.

 OATH OF ALLEGIANCE:  http://colonialancestors.com/

Citizens signed an oath declaring their allegiance to America. In addition to finding these in court records you can also find some in print, in electronic databases of genealogical societies and One Name Societies.

 

OCCUPATIONS: 

Many trades and occupations of colonial times are unfamiliar to us. We must use source books or the Internet for occupations.

www.picadome.fcps.net/lab/currl/colonial/trades.htm.

Index of old occupations:  http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/index.html

 

PASSENGER LISTS:

???->NY: 1892-1924: LOWEN/LOAN/LOEWEN Surname, Ellis Island Records, 1892-1924   -   

???->NY: The Lost Children of Ellis Island   -   

???->VA: 1634: Passengers to Virginia on Merchant Ship Bonaventure, Jan. 2, 1634   -   

ENG->Barbadoes: 1634: Passengers to Barbadoes on the Ship Hopewell from London, Feb. 17, 1634   -   

ENG->Barbados: 1634: Passengers to St. Christopher's (St. Kitts) and Barbadoes from London. Jan. 6, 1634   -   

ENG->NY: 1914: U.S. Mail Steamer "New York", Southampton to New York via Cherbourg   -   

ENG->NY: 1950: M.V. "Britannic", Liverpool and Cobh to New York   -   

ENG->NY: 1950: R.M.S. "Franconia", Liverpool and Cobh to New York   -   

Ferrari DiFabio passenger list   -   

GER->NY: 1868: "Charlotte" from Bremen to New York, 06 July 1868   -   

IRL->NY: 1803: "Wilmington", Belfast to New York   -   

IRL->NY: 1851: SS Alice Wilson, 4 Aug 1851   -   

IRL->USA (Boston): 1848-1891: DORGAN (surname), Arrivals From Ireland To Boston   -   

IRL->USA (Boston): 1851: Brig. "Caroline", May 1851   -   

ITA->NY: 1906: SS "Italia", Naples to New York, June 1906, Partial List   -   

ITA->USA: Selected Passenger List Information, Molise and Sicily, Italy to USA   -   

NY->ENG: 1915: Lusitania Passenger and Crew List, May 7 1915 (sinking)   -   

Passengers To and From Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1851   -   

SCT->CAN: 1771: "Edinburgh", Campbeltown Scotland to St. Johns (Prince Edward Island)   -   

SCT->NY: 1840: British Barque "Tay", Aug 1840   -   

SCT->NY: 1841: Brig "Czar"   -   

SCT->NY: 1842: British Barque "Gleaner"   -   

SCT->NY: 1850: Bark "Charlotte Harrison", Scotland to New York, Jul 1850   -   

SCT->NY: 1850: British ship "Sarah", Glasgow to New York, Jul 1850   -   

SCT->NY: 1911: SS California, 14 Oct 1911   -   

SCT->NY: 1915: RMS Cameronia, 23 Jul 1915   -   

SCT->USA (NC): 1770: "Edinburgh", Campbeltown Scotland to Cape Fear NC   -   

SCT->USA (NC): 1774: "Diana", Scotland to Wilmington North Carolina, Sept 1774   -   

UK->NZ/Aus: RMS Maraoa   -   Australia and New Zealand Data

 

WILLS AND PROBATE

Land deeds, will, and probate records should be high on your list of important records after marriage records. The female names may be in any of these. In some states the wife’s name was added to deeds. They even had to sign in some cases. Besides a marriage record, or accidently finding her maiden name on a tombstone, land records, wills, and probate should be foremost.

 

Administrator: a woman assigned by the court to administer an estate where there is no valid will.

Concubine: a woman who lives with a man to whom she is not married.

Consort: companion: term for when the woman predeceased her husband.

Dower: a legal provision for a woman’s support and that of her children after her husband’s death; typically one-third of the husband’s property; also known as “Widow’s thirds.”

Dowry: property the bride brings to her marriage

Executrix: the woman named in a will to distribute the estate.

Grass widow: a woman whose husband had deserted her, also used to refer to a woman who has illegitimate children or to a discarded common-law wife.

Grass Widower: A man whose wife had deserted him, also used to refer to a man who has illegitimate children or to a discarded common-law husband.

Relict: a widow [See Black’s law for better definition.]

Analyzing the will:  http://www.bcgcertification.org/skillbuilders/skbld955.html

Skill building site:  http://www.bcgcertification.org/skillbuilders/index.html

 

VITAL RECORDS:

Vital records, i.e. births and deaths, began being recorded about 1903, but later for some states. They are written at the time of the event, usually the information was given by a relative or very close friend. They give names, dates, places, relationships, and sometimes occupation of the deceased and parents’ occupation. Vital records record the births, marriages, divorces and deaths in the community. These records unravel the mystery of maiden names, married names—even first and middle names. Remember to check divorce records for both the maiden name and married name of the females. I found one female who married four times—each time she used her maiden name.

There are records in the courthouse for name changes. There is no telling what you might find in these records.

Ancestry has many of these online as well as FamilySearch Labs. If you enter as much information as you can the results should be successful. Enter too little information and the results will be enormous.

FamilySearch Labs: Click on http://labs.familysearch.org/ and then click either FamilySearch Alpha, Record Search, Forums, Research Wiki, Family Tree, etc.

Free Marriage Record search, but a fee is necessary for the results. Genealinks searches by name, surname or location. I have better results with location, but once you find a hit it sends you to another page that charges for the records. http://www.genealinks.com/