RLP 144: Research in Missouri: The Land and History

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 144 research in Missouri Land and History. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (42s):
Let’s go, hi everyone. Welcome to Research Like a Pro.

Diana (48s):
Hi, Nicole, how are you doing today?

Nicole (51s):
Good. I’m editing my ProGen narrative and reviewing other people’s family narratives, giving feedback. It’s been fun to read each other’s work.

Diana (59s):
You learn a lot from reading other people’s writing don’t you?

Nicole (1m 2s):
You really do. What have you been working on?

Diana (1m 5s):
Well, I started a new project in Alabama. I’m working on my Missouri Isenhour family for the study group, and I’ve been reading the most interesting book. It was recommended in our SLIG course on Missouri. The title is a History of the Ozarks, Volume One, the Old Ozarks, and the author is Brooks Blevins, which I think is so interesting because we do have Blevins in our family history. So we’re probably connected somewhere way, way back, but this book has been fascinating because we do have a lot of family members that came through Missouri and some of them settled in the Ozarks. And as I’m reading it, I’m trying to think of our family history and putting people, you know, into these little pockets of settlements and wondering about their lives.

Diana (1m 52s):
So it’s been a great recommendation.

Nicole (1m 55s):
So where are the Ozarks for those who are wondering

Diana (1m 59s):
The Ozarks are this large plateau. It actually goes up to the Missouri river, and then it goes down into Arkansas a little bit into Oklahoma, and it’s just an Upland. You know, it’s an area that was higher up and it had more rocky soil and more trees, a little bit more difficult to farm. And so it wasn’t settled until later. And in the portion I’m reading right now, the settlers are just starting to pour in it’s 1830s, 1840s, 1850s. And the settlement is just increasing by the thousands as people are coming in to claim land, and the land wasn’t necessarily really great land, but you know, it was land.

Diana (2m 50s):
And so that’s where I’m at right now. The Ozarks are part of what we learned about in our Missouri course. And so we’re going to talk a little bit more about them as they go through this podcast, because our topic today is on Missouri, The Land and the History. This was really inspired by our course, and I have to give credit to Pam Sayer. She’s a certified genealogists and she was the coordinator for the Missouri course at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. She brought together experts in ethnic groups that settled in Missouri and put together a really nice course. So I was interested in taking this course because as I mentioned, we do have a lot of ancestors who pass through Missouri or settled there for a period of time.

Diana (3m 41s):
None of them stayed forever, you know, they were coming from places, east, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and coming into Missouri for just a period of time then going on to Arkansas or straight to Texas, and they ended up in Texas. And I think a lot of researchers, especially if you’re Southern researcher have something similar where your ancestors were moving west and they probably have a Missouri connection somewhere, just because of some of the factors that we’ll talk about with the rivers and westward settlement. So I think it behooves any of us with ancestors that came west to learn about Missouri and see if there’s some new places that we could research.

Diana (4m 26s):
Maybe it’ll add a little bit to the story of our ancestors’ life, or maybe we have a brick wall that’s just sitting there in Missouri waiting to be broken down. And there is so much to talk about that today. We’re just going to talk about the land and the history, and then the next episodes down the road, we’ll talk about repositories and the court system, all sorts of other interesting things about Missouri.

Nicole (4m 48s):
Great. I’m excited to do this deep dive into Missouri and understand this area a little better. So let’s start with talking about the land and kind of why understanding that the land really matters to our genealogy research. You probably already know that understanding the land helps you understand the influence of the geography on their lives and what records might’ve been created. So since Missouri has diverse regions, there were different options for where you could settle. So people tended to try to find a type of geography or land that was similar to what they were coming from because they already knew how to farm there.

Nicole (5m 31s):
And so it was familiar and it wasn’t like learning a whole new way of farming. The Missouri department of natural resources has defined the different regions in Missouri as the Interior Plains, the Interior Highlands, which is also known as the Ozark Plateau and the Mississippi Alluvial Plain. You’ll see that settlers who came from Ohio and Indiana and Illinois tended to settle the northern Interior Plains. And then the Ozark Plateau saw more people coming from the mountains of east Tennessee and North Carolina, those settlers who had already grown cotton and similar crops ended up choosing the Mississippi Alluvial Plain, it’s commonly called the Boot Heel because they knew how to farm in that type of soil.

Diana (6m 21s):
So if you have an ancestor who lived in Missouri, you can place him in his region and then see if that aligns with the common migration. So I did that with some of our ancestors and it was really interesting, and we always have to remember that our ancestor could fit the mold, or maybe they’re an outlier. But as I mentioned earlier, I’m working on my Isenhour family in Cape Girardeau county and this group, they were from the Piedmont area of Lincoln county, North Carolina. And they had moved into Cape Girardeau in the early 1820s. So pretty early, and that is right there on the border of the Mississippi Alluvial Plain and the Ozark Plateau.

Diana (7m 6s):
So, you know, it’s kind of a border area, but I’m guessing that they possibly were growing cotton and some of the crops that they were growing in North Carolina and then moved to that area because it could be a similar type of farming for them. And that’s something that I’m exploring in my project, trying to learn more about why they moved in that area and you know, what was the drought. So I’ll have to have an update on that as I get further on in my project, but then we also have a group of people, the Briscoes, Fraziers and Clantons who were from North Carolina and Tennessee. And they moved into McDonald and Bury counties, which are in the Southwest part of the state.

Diana (7m 51s):
And they lived there during the civil war. So they were there from like 1850 to 1870, and then they moved on to Texas. So they were in part of the Ozark Plateau. And then I have the Clines and the Harrises who were just south of the Missouri river. So in the very north part of that plateau, almost in the Northern Plains section, but they were south of the Missouri. So I have these three different groups that were all different areas of Missouri. So it’s kind of fun to place people and think about why they were there and if they fit into that common pattern of settlement.

Nicole (8m 30s):
Yeah. That’s really interesting that there was kind of a pattern for going to places they were familiar with, but it really does make sense. And I’ve heard that with other migration and even immigration, that people tend to choose a region that has similar weather and geography to the country or the place that they’re coming.

Diana (8m 49s):
Absolutely. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the rivers. I learned in the course, the importance of the rivers for Missouri. And it was really interesting to take a deep dive in and explore these three rivers and their importance. So think about it. If you had to travel, would it be easier to take a boat down the river, a flat boat perhaps, or maybe when steam boats came into existence to take a steam boat up a river, if you’re having to travel up river or to load up your wagon and go buy land? Well, I think by river would have been much easier. Of course, you wouldn’t have all those barriers of land travel.

Diana (9m 31s):
And so our ancestors thought the same thing and really use the rivers to get from one place to another. So there are three main rivers that had a part to play in the settlement of Missouri. And the first one that we’ll talk about is the Mississippi, which begins way north in Minnesota, and then flows south. And it becomes the border of Missouri on the east. And then eventually it goes all the way into the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi flows through 10 states and creates the border for Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi to the west. And then Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas to the east.

Diana (10m 13s):
So if you have ancestors in any of those states or areas, and they were trying to move south, they very likely could have taken the Mississippi. Numerous settlements spring up along the river and even if your ancestor didn’t stay long in Missouri, perhaps they stopped for a period of time en route to other locations. And I have this with my Benjamin Cox who ended up coming down from Indiana to Arkansas and into Texas. And I think he probably stopped in Missouri for a bit because some of the children talk about Missouri a little, and I haven’t discovered any records, but I’m so curious to see if I could figure out where they might’ve stopped for a bit.

Diana (10m 60s):
Now, the first steam boat reached St. Louis in 1817. And of course, when you’ve got a steam boat, then that’s much easier to travel on. And that contributed a lot to the growth of the area. Another thing that really helped was when Ohio connected the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes via an extensive canal system. And so when that happened, the Northeastern states had a way to move west and to move south. So then you’ve got people coming from Pennsylvania and New York and, you know, all of the Eastern and Northern states along that river. So it’s kind of amazing to think of how many settlers would have used the river.

Diana (11m 41s):
Now we have the Missouri river, which is a little bit different from the Mississippi because it starts up in Montana and flows east and south until it joins the Mississippi at St. Louis. And so the Missouri river would have been up river for anyone in Missouri trying to go west, and it would have been more difficult to navigate. And so really settlement was at a minimum until the Steamboat came into use. And then when that era was introduced, the Missouri became another major highway, as you would, for the settlers to move west. Lastly, we have the Ohio river, which I already mentioned a little bit and the Ohio begins in Pennsylvania.

Diana (12m 23s):
And then again, flows southwesterly to St. Louis. And so that would bring all the settlers from Virginia and Ohio, Pennsylvania, anywhere along the way, pick up people in Kentucky and Indiana and Illinois, and bring them down into Missouri and then further points west. So we have those three main rivers, the Ohio, the Missouri, and the Mississippi that all converge there in Missouri and played a big part of settlement, not only for Missouri, but as a way to get further west as well.

Nicole (12m 57s):
When you were talking about the area of river and the steamboats, I was thinking about, you know, when was that Steamboat era?

Diana (13m 4s):
Well, the first steam boat was in St. Louis in 1817, but then it just continued to grow. For the Missouri and the steam boat, I would guess it would probably be closer to the civil war and later, just because there wasn’t a lot of growth out through Missouri until later, you know, the settlers hadn’t really expanded beyond the Mississippi settlements.

Nicole (13m 27s):
Great. Yeah. The rivers seem like a really important part of the geography of Missouri. So it’s really helpful to understand that. Let’s talk now about some of the history of Missouri. It began as a French territory in the late 1600s. Through that Spain took over in 1770 after the French and Indian war. And that lasted until the Louisiana purchase of 1803. And then for just a few years, from 1800 to 1803, Spain returned the Louisiana territory to France. But then the US purchased all of the Louisiana territory from France. And that was such a momentous occasion in US history.

Nicole (14m 8s):
They paid $15 million and gained all of that territory. And that purchase covered quite a bit of land. It didn’t just include Louisiana, included some of Louisiana, but all of present day, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and parts of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Northern Texas and some of Minnesota. So that’s pretty large.

Diana (14m 37s):
It is, it even had a little part that went up into Canada until they got that Northern border resolved.

Nicole (14m 45s):
Right. So then during the French and Spanish eras, there was some settlement that happened mostly along the Mississippi. And you can imagine that the settlements grew around the trading posts that were there, but then after the Louisiana purchase in 1803 and the U S government established a Louisiana territory, St. Louis was established as the seat of government. Then the new state of Louisiana was admitted to the Union. And after that, Congress renamed that territory to be Missouri territory on June 4th, 1812. Around that time native Americans inhabited most of the territory, there were several treaties made with various tribes that gradually pushed them into Indian territory, which is now Oklahoma and Kansas.

Nicole (15m 35s):
And if they didn’t go into Indian territory, they were pushed onto reservations. So why do we need to understand this part of the history? Well, our ancestors could settle the land after the tribal lands were ceded to the U S government. So you’ll typically see settlements growing after the treaties were made. And the way that the land was claimed was typically through a variety of federal land acts. And you’ve probably heard of the homestead act of 1862, which was a big way for new settlers to be enticed, to come out and settle this new territory.

Nicole (16m 17s):
So the lure of this land brought new settlers from all kinds of populated areas of the United States, as well as new immigrants from countries in Europe, like Germany and Ireland. So you’ll see settlers coming from all over with this promise of land becoming available.

Diana (16m 35s):
So as I was doing my reading this morning from the Ozarks book, I read about some of the land and it was kind of fascinating that there were a lot of squatters, which meant that they didn’t have really any legal claim to the land. They just went out, set up housekeeping, built a cabin, started farming and had never gone through any of the process to get the land. So then the government had this problem with all of these people out living on the land. So they would pass an act that would allow those people to go in and get their land surveyed and actually get a title to that land.

Diana (17m 15s):
So studying the land history is really important. I think a lot of times we get that land record and we think, oh yeah, I’ve got the land patent. And, but digging a little bit deeper into the history of the land and thinking about why your ancestor got that land. Was he a squatter or did he purchase that land? First was the land speculator. There were tons of land speculators also throughout Missouri and really any type of area as it was being opened up to land. There would be a lot of speculators men going in and getting patents and then, you know, reselling the land. So a lot of things to think about as we’re doing our land research for ancestors.

Diana (17m 57s):
Yeah. Well, let’s just do a little brief timeline of this area. So Nicole, you’ve done a great job and taking us through the history, but there’s a few things that are really specific to Missouri that I thought I would just mention and just kind of put a date with each one, so that as you’re listening, think of when your ancestor might’ve come into this area or think about, you know, what might’ve been happening with your ancestor, where they were living. It’s so interesting to think that as early as 1735, there was the first permanent white settlement in St. Genevieve. So that’s really early 1735 out there on the Mississippi. And of course this would be a French settlement and 1764 St.

Diana (18m 42s):
Louis began. It was just a trading post established by Pierre Laclède Liguest. Then 1769 another trading post was established in St. Charles by Louis Blanchette. And in 1773, we had Potosi founded as the mine, au Breton. So mining was huge in this area. They had discovered that there was a lot of good or in the land. And so they brought in their slaves and also other workers and mined a lot of the land. And so that was some of the early settlements. And then as you mentioned, 1803 was Louisiana purchase. And then soon after that, the Louisiana territory was organized.

Diana (19m 25s):
And then that’s when we start seeing these Native American tribes starting to cede the lands. And a major cession was in 1808 with the Osage tribe. And they had been a predominant native American tribe all throughout the Ozarks. So with that land cession, we’re going to start seeing more settlers. Then in 1811 was the New Madrid earthquake, which I had never heard of before I took the course. This quake was so powerful. The Mississippi river ran backward in places, if you can imagine, and it completely devastated the land. So settlers who had been farming, they couldn’t farm it at all.

Diana (20m 6s):
And so you will see after that date, people moving west and going into other places. So if you have an ancestor who might’ve been in Missouri in the New Madrid area, consider how that earthquake would have affected them. And then in 1812, we have the change of name from Louisiana territory to Missouri territory. And I want you to just pay special attention to that name change because sometimes we’re looking for records in the wrong place, and we don’t realize that our ancestor didn’t move at all. It’s just the name of the place changed. So be thinking of territorial names and how your ancestor could have been a one place, the name changed, and then the records are going to be under a different terminology.

Diana (20m 51s):
In 1821, Missouri was made a state and in 1825, the Osage tribe ceded the remainder of their lands. And not long after in 1832, the Delaware and Shawnee tribe ceded their lands. So just like in other Western and Southern states, we’re seeing 1820s and 1830s, this major cession of Indian lands as they’re being pushed into Indian territory in 1837, there is the plat purchase. And this added six counties in the Northwest part of the state. And so Missouri grew a little bit by 1837 and then in 1838, we have what is known in Missouri as the Mormon war and the eviction of followers of Joseph Smith.

Diana (21m 36s):
So in our history of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, we learn a lot about that period of the eviction and Governor Box and the extermination order. Then in 1848 is when we start seeing a lot of German immigrants coming into Missouri and they form what is known as the Missouri’s Rhineland in that sense St. Louis and Kansas city areas. And we’re going to have some more information on Germans in Missouri coming up in future articles and podcasts. Then in 1849, we’ve got the Irish famine immigration. There were a sizable amount that came to St. Louis because they would immigrate through the port of new Orleans and then come up the Mississippi river to St.

Diana (22m 22s):
Louis. And so then we had some conflicts between the German and the Irish immigrants. And then we had the major conflict of the civil war in 1861. And Missouri was really split between Confederate and union sympathizers. And there were actually two sets of government running the states simultaneously, a Confederate government and a union government. So that was really fascinating. And then in 1865, when the civil war is finally over really devastating in the state of Missouri, by the way, but there was a great migration of African-Americans from the south. And then in the early 1900s, we see migration west from Missouri.

Diana (23m 3s):
So that’s when the call of the west happens to Missourians and they go out to the west coast to the Pacific Northwest, and the farmers started migrating to the cities as well. So we’ve had the industrial age kind of hit, and everybody’s looking for something different than just farming in Missouri and moving on. So in a nutshell, there’s the history of Missouri. And of course that’s pretty surface-y, but hopefully it gives you a little bit of an idea. And it’s just so interesting to put your ancestor in their time, right?

Nicole (23m 36s):
While you were talking, I was thinking about the native American tribes that were pushed out and thinking about their history a little bit. And I noticed that the Oklahoma society has some great articles about the history prior to white settlement there. And, you know, through that same time period for the Osage and the other tribes that were in the area. So that’s helpful as well if you have native American ancestry that lived in this region at that time to learn more about their history, too,

Diana (24m 8s):
It is really good. The Oklahoma historical society website is fabulous. And I would also mention that the book that I talked about at the beginning by Brooks Blevins on the history of the Ozarks has a really extensive chapter on the native Americans. And it’s fascinating learning about all the different interactions with the different tribes, with the French and the Spanish, and then the white settlers.

Nicole (24m 34s):
Oh, good to know. All right. Well, now that we’ve covered geography and history, let’s talk for a second about research methodology. So how does understanding this land in history help us to research our Missouri ancestors? Well, mostly it helps us to discover them in the records because we really need to know which jurisdiction to search at different points in history for the records. So if your ancestor moved into Missouri in the very early time periods, you might look for French or Spanish land records. And then if the ancestors moved in during the territorial period, then you may be looking at territorial census records.

Nicole (25m 17s):
So just like you need to understand county boundary changes. We also need to understand statehood and, you know, those larger boundary changes of territories changing in size, changing hands of government and that kind of thing. So how do we overcome the challenge of trying to track them through these changing localities? We always recommend making a thorough timeline of your ancestor and listing every possible location of his or her life events, then consider where the ancestor lived within a physiographic region of Missouri. Does this make sense with his previous location where he migrated from, and then really learn about the history and understand the ramifications of certain events like the new moderate earthquake or the civil war and the unrest scene in Missouri during that time.

Nicole (26m 10s):
So once you understand, you know, where they lived and what was going on, then you can really focus in on that era to really determine the jurisdiction that was responsible for keeping records. And then you’re ready to search the records. So if you’ve done our Research Like a Pro methodology, this is really starting at the beginning with an objective, a timeline, and then doing your locality research, then you’re ready to make a research plan and search the records that were applicable. And it’s much harder to find the right record sets to search if you haven’t fully studied the locality.

Diana (26m 45s):
Right. Now, I think that all the things we’ve talked about today could be really applied to any locality, digging into that geography and history, the timeline. So whether you have ancestors in Missouri or not, hopefully gain some ideas and some thoughts about how to be a better researcher in whatever location you’re researching, but specifically if you’re in Missouri, I hope this podcast really helped open your eyes to some of the interesting things about Missouri research.

Nicole (27m 17s):
Well, I learned a lot from you. So thanks for putting this together so that I could also learn about Missouri and hopefully everyone listening will go look up their Missouri ancestors if they have any and have a good time learning about their region and the history.

Diana (27m 35s):
All right. Good luck everyone. Bye. Bye.

Nicole (27m 36s):
Bye. Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our Research Like a Pro online course or join our next Study Group. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com to share your progress and ask questions. Join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our e-course or Study Group. If you like what you heard and would like to support this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.