RLP 194: Texas Land Grants – Spanish Era

Nicole (1s):
This is research like a pro episode 194, Texas Land Grants – Spanish Era. 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 authors of Research Like a Pro A Genealogist Guide. With Robin Wirthlin they also co-authored the companion volume, Research Like a Pro with DNA. Join Diana and Nicole as they discuss how to stay organized, make progress in their research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (41s):
Let’s go. Hi everyone. Welcome to Research Like a Pro.

Diana (48s):
Hi, Nicole. How are you today?

Nicole (50s):
I’m good. Mom. How are you?

Diana (52s):
I’m doing great.

Nicole (54s):
So what have you been working on lately?

Diana (57s):
Well, I’ve been working on our own family history for once. It’s been so fun and I’ve had a hard time stopping. It’s been amazing with more knowledge, you can find more stuff. So I thought I had done all the research I could on this family. It’s are my third. Great-grandfather your fourth Hickman Monroe Shults. And my project was just to figure out why he came into Texas by 1848. And I knew he, the family had come from Arkansas. So I did some work in the tax records for his father, and I did not find a land patent for him in Arkansas, but in the tax records, one of them had a land description.

Diana (1m 37s):
And so I think that he just never finished proving up the land, you know, never did the final steps to get the land patent because either the father died, he dies by the time they come into Texas by 1850, you know, we don’t know when he died, he died in Arkansas or on the way, or when he first got to Texas. But anyway, it was super fun to do the work in the tax records. And now I’m analyzing it and correlating everything with the land records and putting together a better picture of the family. So it’s been really fun.

Nicole (2m 9s):
Yeah. It is amazing how, now that we have more experience going back and revisiting research, we had done, when we were beginners, we can find some more information and some more sources that we just didn’t weren’t aware of.

Diana (2m 22s):
Yeah. And the analysis and the correlation that is really big too, because you can have the sources staring at you, but what do they mean and how do you put it together? And that’s so much of what we’ve learned.

Nicole (2m 37s):
That’s really true. The meaning behind the document, like the tax records, you

Diana (2m 40s):
Know? Yes.

Nicole (2m 42s):
What does this actually mean? And how can I figure that out? It’s not like just an article online. You have to go read an old law book.

Diana (2m 51s):
Yeah. You have to have some understanding and more experienced with the records. It’s just amazing. So anyway, I have really been enjoying returning to this project, and honestly, I’ve been thinking it it’d be really fun to also add DNA to that and find DNA evidence for each generation going back. So, you know, in the future, I will want to do that. It’s kind of funny now that we add DNA to so many of our projects, I want to do that for all of our family lines as well.

Nicole (3m 22s):
Yes. It’s really tempting to just work on our own research all the time. And in fact, I was doing that last week with a project I’m seeing if I could use for my portfolio. And I was just having so much fun writing as I research and finding cool things. And then I realized, no, I have some to-do items I really should work on. Not as fun, but very necessary.

Diana (3m 46s):
That’s very true. Yep. Yep. Which is why it’s good to do this research in phases because we can stop, finish it up, put it in future research. And then when we want to come back, it’s all ready to go. We don’t have to feel like we’ll lose anything by stopping a project.

Nicole (4m 1s):
Absolutely. Well, let’s talk about our announcements last week, we talked about how we are going to be at the national genealogical society conference. NGS May 25th through 28th in Sacramento, where we will be speaking about air table. That’s my topic. And Diana is talking about why DNA and her Royston immigrant ancestor. And then also talking about research, planning, and productivity. So those are all going to be great classes. So we’d love to see you there in person. I know you have to show that you’ve been vaccinated and wear a mask and it’ll be great to be together. And then you can come visit us at our booth as well.

Nicole (4m 42s):
And we’ll be bringing some of our books and talking with people at our booth. So it’s always really fun to meet everybody. So we hope that you’ll be there in Sacramento in may.

Diana (4m 52s):
Oh my goodness. I can’t wait to get back in person. However, I’m going to have to see if I can still run a projector and slides because it’s been so long since we did that, but it’ll be, it’ll be fun to get back in presenting in person and meeting people face to face instead of on zoom. Well, let’s get to our topic for the day. Today is our first discussion about Texas land grants. And this is a series of blog posts that I have been writing. And we’re going to talk about them on the podcast. They’re actually based on the NGS lecture that I did in 2020, which was all about the Texas land grants.

Diana (5m 32s):
And you’ll see, as you listen, why they’re so confusing and why they’re so important. And it’s important to understand. We have a whole slew of Texas ancestors. And just as we were talking about earlier, I had found some land records for them, but didn’t really fully explore them to see what they meant and what they meant to the research. And so it’s been fun for me to revisit some of our own ancestors land records. So we are going to start off today. And first of all, do an overview of the history of Texas. And then we’re going to talk about the Spanish era. So if you have an ancestor who came into Texas in the 1700s or 1800s, you really need to know the history, the jurisdictions and the records, you know, it’s no different than any other location.

Diana (6m 26s):
Those things are so key. And we want to think about why our ancestors came to Texas. Well, the major reason was land availability. And if you have a family story that perhaps your ancestor received land from the king of Spain, you know, don’t discount that it’s entirely possible because during the Spanish era, those grants were given by the Spanish king. I know I worked on a project that was in Texas and the family had that story. And I had to dive in and learn a lot about the land during the Spanish and the Mexican era.

Diana (7m 7s):
And we found a possible candidate for, for the family, but it was going to take more research. So I never made the exact connection, but it was so fun to learn so much about these grants. So think about this time period, it’s really 1800s where we start getting people pouring into Texas. And so much of that is because the land on the east coast of the United States had filled up and people wanted to live on the frontier. They wanted to start over. And there are always those people that want an adventure and Texas certainly was going to offer plenty in the way of adventure. Also during the Mexican era, there was no reciprocal agreement requiring fugitives to be returned to the United States or allowing creditors to collect depths.

Diana (7m 56s):
So if you were bankrupt or the law wanted you to go out to Texas under a Mexican rule and you know, be safe. So that maybe that’s why it was the wild west for so long. And then of course after the civil war, we have a lot of southerners coming out for a new start. And we certainly see that in the Royston family that I talk about a lot and they left their plantation in Alabama, came out to Texas and started over. And so we see that as well. So lots of reasons, but a lot of it really had to do with the land.

Nicole (8m 35s):
Absolutely. And I feel like a lot of African-Americans also went into Texas. And what do you think the reason was for that? Were they also seeking land? Was it that some of them had come as enslaved people and then when they were liberated, they just stayed or,

Diana (8m 49s):
Oh yeah. You had plenty of southerners bringing their, they have people with them and to Texas before the civil war. And then afterwards, you know, the same thing. If you were emancipated and you were free, you would want to go somewhere and get a new start often. And so you see the Freedmen coming into Texas as well. And then also we have Indian territory just north of Texas. And we have the five civilized tribes there and a lot of Texans going back and forth between Indian territory in Texas. There’s just a really interesting time.

Diana (9m 29s):
And you know, I’ve done a lot of research there because all of our ancestors did that thing, Texas to Indian territory, and then back to Texas back and forth. So you do see, and you see a lot of the, the native Americans and African-Americans and all the records.

Nicole (9m 44s):
I like how you mentioned that land records can be a really important part of why people came there while land availability. So the importance of land records is that we can learn about more than just their land. And of course, land records can reveal how long they stayed in a place, but they can also reveal additional things like their military service, their associates and family members that live near them. You can infer these things just by proximity sometimes and similar names. So let’s talk about military service. If a person received a grant for their involvement in a war or their conflict, then you can sometimes tell by the type of a land grant that they received, land grants also included original surveys.

Nicole (10m 34s):
And sometimes you can see a map showing their neighbors, and this can be so useful and figuring out who they chose to live by, because usually they could choose their own land. And so the neighbors were likely to be their friends and family and acquaintances and people that they at least got to know as they’ve lived there and possibly their children married each other’s, you know, married the other children in the neighborhood. So we can really use those clues on the land grant maps to see who the neighbors were and if they were connected, one thing you can do, which a lot of times we don’t think of doing is to not just order the land grant for your own ancestor, but to order and look at the information on land grants of neighbors, to see if there’s any witness statements or any clues that your ancestor provided on those neighbors grants, some questions to ask her, did they serve in the military together?

Nicole (11m 27s):
Did they move into the area at the same time? All of these details on the land grants can give you clues to possibilities for additional research to do. So. One question I want to ask you, Diana, is, did people really get to choose where their land grant was? How does that work with?

Diana (11m 46s):
Well, Texas was a state land state. And so we are going to talk about that later on when we talk about the Republic of Texas and the state of Texas, but generally yeah, they would go into the land office and they would have the land surveyed. So in the land office, they would have big maps and I believe they would show where land was available and then they would go out and have the land surveyed. So I have seen like with this Hickman Monroe Shults, his land grant is not too far from his brother-in-law’s and you know, I can’t help, but think that they possibly went in at the same time or around the same time.

Diana (12m 33s):
And we’re looking to receive land that was close to each other, so they could be in the same neighborhood. The neat thing about these land grants is that they are digitized on the Texas general land records website. And it’s a little bit tricky navigating that we’ll be talking about that in the later podcasts, they are beautiful. They’re digitized in full color, which is important because one of the land grants that I have completely transcribed has four different colors on it. And they would come back and read and make notes later and then come back and green and make notes later.

Diana (13m 13s):
So having the color digital copy is really important too, to try to figure out what was going on with the land. So these are available. And once you get the hang of searching for your person and accessing it, you can transcribe the entire record and really learn a lot. And the ones I’ve seen, they do have a little hand drawn map of the survey with, like you mentioned, the neighbors and the land description, is it sort of a combination of meets and bounds? Like you see in the states like North Carolina, you know, where it talks about going to the old Oak tree and go into the stream, that type of thing. But then it also has a little bit more like the federal survey with some of that type of description.

Diana (13m 60s):
So it’s, it’s kind of, it’s kind of a mix it’s interesting and a whole different whole different baby than land records and other places, which is why I wanted to dig in and learn about it. So let’s just talk a little bit about history and whether, you know, what it means or not. You probably have heard the term, the six flags of Texas, and it actually refers to the six jurisdictions that rolled Texas from the very beginning, starting with Spain and then ending with the United States. So even though there were lots of different flags used during these areas, the Texas historical commission approved a specific design and determined six flags that represent appropriate flags of the six nations at the time.

Diana (14m 45s):
And so they have, you know, you can Google it and see the little design is kind of fun, but basically we’ve got Spain that was in charge from 1519 to 1685 for a brief era. We’ve got France squeezed in there, 1685 to 1689. And then we come back to Spain, 1690 to 1821. The Mexico takes charge for just a brief amount of time, 1821 to 1836, but they did a lot with the land Mexico did. And then there’s the Republic of Texas, again, a short period of time, but a lot of land granted under the Republic from 1836 to 1845, then Texas was under the Confederate states of America during the civil war.

Diana (15m 28s):
And then finally part of the United States. So, you know, you’ve got things that kind of overlap there at times, but those are the six flags. So like I mentioned, Spain started in 1519 with the Spanish Explorer, Alonzo de pinata on the Gulf coast. But that said, it wouldn’t be until the 1680s, that Spain actually established a mission at east Letta near El Paso. So even though they landed there and they claimed it, there wasn’t a lot done. And then in 1685, the French Explorer, LaSalle, who we all recognize that name from our history, right?

Diana (16m 12s):
Established Fort St. Louis near Matagorda bay, but that was very short-lived. And in 1689 Governor de León destroyed the Fort. And that was the end of the French influence in Texas. And then a few years later, Spain decided they needed to start strengthening their presence in Texas and began to establish the missions. And the missions are throughout all the Spanish area. You know, you see the missions in California and Arizona and New Mexico, all that era. And Spain did the same thing in Texas.

Nicole (16m 43s):
Yeah. That’s interesting that France had a claim in Texas for a few years. I know they were really present in Louisiana around this time, but I guess they didn’t expand their influence very strongly.

Diana (16m 57s):
Yeah. I think they were just too close to what was current day, Mexico or Spanish just had more influence and they just kind of hang on to it.

Nicole (17m 7s):
So speaking of Mexico, so in 1821, Mexico got their independence from Spain and they took over the ruling of Texas until the Mexican army led by Santa Ana was defeated by Sam Houston and his followers. So that’s when the Republic of Texas was born in 1836. And it’s such an interesting part of United States history that we have this like state that had their own Republic, you know, Texans love that. I think it’s so interesting. And so they claimed all the lands in Texas, as well as some other Western states, even. And so that Republic of Texas time period was from 1836 until when Texas joined the union in 1845.

Nicole (17m 49s):
And at that they gave up its claim to those lands in exchange for $10 million. And they were allowed to keep their own public lands. And so they entered the union as a state land state. So they’re unique in that way as well. The annexation of Texas into the United States was right before the Mexican war because Mexico is still considered Texas part of Mexico. So tell me more about that.

Diana (18m 17s):
Well, as you can imagine, Mexico didn’t really want to lose their land. And part of the problem was that, and we’ll talk about this more in the next episode, but Mexico was seeing all of these angles coming in and getting land and they were feeling like it was getting out of control. So they started limiting things quite a bit, not letting any new people in. And of course, if your family was there and you wanted to come into Texas, you weren’t happy. And so that really was part of the revolution. You know, they were just like, okay, we’re done with Mexico being in charge of us. We want to be our own, our own Republic of Texas. And that started the Mexican war.

Diana (18m 58s):
And then finally with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican era and they had to define the Southern border of Texas and Texas became a Republic. And then, you know, it came into the union in 1845 and then they succeeded from the union during the civil war and then rejoined in 1870s. So very interesting history.

Nicole (19m 27s):
Mm hmm, long history of very independent group of people there in Texas. So I guess our main question now to discuss is how did this affect the land distribution? Because, you know, first we have Spain then Mexico, then the Republic of Texas and then the Confederate states, right. Then finally, well, and then the union in between. So how did this, how did this affect the era and what kind of records do we have to teach us about our ancestors?

Diana (19m 56s):
Well, during the Spanish era, like I mentioned earlier, they really just kind of ignored the land. You know, they claimed it in 1519, and then they didn’t do much with it until the French came in and they decided they needed to get rid of the French and decided they needed a presence. But if you can imagine the Spanish colonists who had already moved into Mexico really didn’t want to move north because they consider this a dangerous land. Of course the land was not unpopulated. There were many native American tribes living there and, but they also had the mandate to spread Christianity and they wanted to go among the native Americans living in Texas and teach some Christianity.

Diana (20m 40s):
And so they established missions and Presidios. And these were generally along the rivers because, you know, Texas many parts of it is arid and you you’d need water for sure. You know, we can always see settlements growing first, along the rivers. And they started a system of Spanish land grants. And under Spain, the Spanish crown owned all the land and private ownership required a grant from the king. So if you do hear of an ancestor who got their land from the king, yeah, it was the king granting the land, but he of course delegated his authority and they had governors and captains, different representatives of the king.

Diana (21m 22s):
The very oldest surviving record of the Spanish land grant is 1720. And it’s the title to the San Jose mission, San Antonio. So this is housed at the Texas general land office. And so neat that they have something from that far back, the original Spanish land grant. So what is a mission? What is a Presidio? These were the earliest grants were for missions and Presidios and the Presidio was a port built of Adobe or logs. And it was the place of protection for the mission. And that’s where the soldiers and the officers resided. And so you see the spread of missions and Presidios throughout Texas.

Diana (22m 4s):
And they were just trying to teach Christianity to the native people. Then we started getting more private land grants, and this was in 1750s and they had Spanish Royal commissioners who had survey and distribute the land. This was in south Texas. So we’re not talking about north or east or west Texas yet. And this was based on seniority. It kind of depended on who you knew and how long you’d been there. And this land is a little bit different. You know, we always think of acres and you know, that kind of like a square of land, but this kind of land is set off from the river. So long, thin strips of land.

Diana (22m 45s):
So you’d have a narrow part on facing the water or a frontage on the river. And then you’d go straight back from that. And they called these porsionas maybe. And you also see this in the French land too, in Louisiana and Missouri, you see porcelains and they could go that several miles from the river, but each person would have that little piece of the river and then they could use that to water their land. So that south Texas area has about 170 porcine on grants and 33 larger land grants. And these are all issued by Spain. So, you know, these generally went to influential citizens, those who probably had money and had influence with the government, but they are there.

Diana (23m 29s):
And they’re recorded in a collection called acts at the visit of the Royal commissioners. So just fun to think about how that original land was given out.

Nicole (23m 39s):
I’m looking at the map that you shared in the blog post that goes along with this. And it’s really neat to see the porsionas and the map there. And they really are just these long, thin strips of land. It’s really strange to think about owning land like that, but you’re right. Like the irrigation water was so important.

Diana (23m 58s):
Yeah. It’s really fun to see. And you can see on the map too, that there’s some porsionas and then in the middle, there’s some other squares that are more like your regular land grant things. So you have both. It’s really interesting.

Nicole (24m 14s):
Yeah. I wonder, I don’t know very much about irrigation, but I’m curious what the technology for irrigation was like back then and how they got the water from their riverfront poor part of their land all the way back to the other end.

Diana (24m 26s):
Well,

Nicole (24m 26s):
I don’t know. Or if they were even able to achieve that, maybe they’d just had the rest of the land for other purposes or something.

Diana (24m 32s):
A lot of grazing. That’s a good question. Something, you know, if your ancestor was one of those that had that land, it’d be fun to really learn about that and see, or imagine what they did with it.

Nicole (24m 45s):
So I’m guessing that the way you pronounced porsionas is the French pronunciation. And as you can guess, this word means portions in English. And so if you think about it that way, it’s just your portion of the land.

Diana (24m 58s):
Yes. There you go.

Nicole (25m 1s):
So in 1820, there was kind of a new thing that happened the opening of Texas to foreign settlement by Spain. And these are called empresarios. So in other areas of Texas informal agreements with the local officials resulted in families receiving a portion of land and so more and more settlers moved into the region. And as they did, the settlers wanted to formalize their grants.

Diana (25m 29s):
So just maybe think of them as squatters. They wanted to get some land and they came in and started living there and they would make a deal with the local governor, whoever it was in charge. And then of course, as they’ve spent some time on the land, they want to actually have a real grant for the land. So you see this in any state or any territory people moving in and just living there without having the formal,

Nicole (25m 56s):
Oh, can I have it now?

Diana (25m 58s):
Yeah, basically. And so that’s, what’s happening in the side

Nicole (26m 3s):
And that’s a big time of migration and growth too, and the 1820s and beyond. So it sounds like the number of people in Texas Kenny remain small, but then in 1820, the Spanish government open Texas up to any settler who would respect the laws of the land so that they could entice more people to come and live there. And in 1821, Mexico obtained their independence from Spain. And so right after that happened, New Mexico took over the land settlement there. And so although Texas fell under Mexican rule at this point, the Spanish influence was still felt all throughout the Mexican role and is still felt today.

Nicole (26m 44s):
I think. But one thing that the Spanish settlers introduced are the horses and cattle and sheep and the land in Texas was well-suited to grazing, like you mentioned so many Spanish laws were retained and Texas land laws kind of became a combination of English, common law and Spanish civil law. So it’s good to have an understanding of both of those, the land measurements that are used. And I’ve seen that’s on a client project that I did during the Mexican era in Texas, they don’t use acres. Like you mentioned, they had the Pourciau nays, and then they also measured the land with the Barra and a labor. So those are continuing to be used in Texas after the Spanish rule ended.

Diana (27m 28s):
And when I was doing the transcription of a land grant back in the day, I kept seeing those terms, like, what is this? And so I finally figured it out cause you know, I think they were a breathing aid to VR for Vera. And it was so confusing until I started learning about the Textless land. And then I figured it out. Oh, okay, they’re getting somebody’s varas or varaz, I don’t know how you’d say it. And I think

Nicole (27m 51s):
In Spanish it would be vara.

Diana (27m 54s):
And with, is it labor or in Spanish? I feel like I heard it pronounced. Labore so sorry. All of you who knows Spanish and know how to say it, these things that we have.

Nicole (28m 4s):
Yeah. That would be how you pronounce it in Spanish.

Diana (28m 7s):
I’m always pronouncing things with the French pronunciation regardless of what language. So that’s kind of funny anyway. Yeah. So it’s, it’s really fun to learn the history of Texas. I enjoyed so much learning and writing about it and talking about it and then applying it to research. So next time we’re going to talk all about the Mexican roll over Texas and this Mexican colonization policy through the Empressario. So you had mentioned Nicole, that Spain started this Emprasario system and when Mexico took over, they just continued with that. And that’s when we see a lot of settlers pouring in because they wanted to settle this land, they needed to have some settlers in there.

Diana (28m 56s):
So that’s going to be fun to talk about the Mexican colonization policy and lots of things to unwrap there. And a lot more people got land, not so many individuals received land grants during the Spanish era, but discussing it really sets the foundation for understanding what happened in Texas,

Nicole (29m 14s):
Right? Like we said, the influence of the Spanish period was felt all throughout the settlement of Texas afterward. And it was just thinking about the, the reasons why Spain or Mexico would want new settlers to come into Texas. And I think it kind of goes back to the same thing with the Virginia company back in the settlement of Jamestown. They wanted people to come settle there because they thought they could, you know, make money from having a new colony. And so I wonder if that’s the same thing here, what’s your feeling on, why did they want people to come

Diana (29m 49s):
Well, originally they wanted, you know, to spread Christianity and, but then we still had these native American tribes. And so they wanted to get more people. So they could actually have settlements and have more protection against the native Americans. But it’s, you know, again, it’s the sad era of seeing those tribes pushed out and the land taken over.

Nicole (30m 15s):
So it was kind of more of a wanting to retain control over their colony or their settlement by establishing a lot of people in there.

Diana (30m 23s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a major thing. And of course they had all these people that needed land and were willing to come in and, you know, the stories are just fascinating about the settlement, you know, you’ll hear about the Texas Rangers as well. That’s how that came to be that the Texas Rangers were fighting the native Americans as well and trying to protect the settlements. So it all comes together as you start studying the history and the land. So,

Nicole (30m 55s):
Yeah, I’m just curious about what the history of the native American tribes there in Texas in the early 1800s and kind of what happened. I’m, I’m thinking like the Apaches and I don’t know who else lived there at that time.

Diana (31m 8s):
So many different tribes. And so many of them were just kind of wiped out. Some of the major ones got land portions up in Indian territory. So we think about the five civilized tribes having, you know, most of the land in Indian territory, but actually there were, there were little allotments for many other tribes and some of those from Texas, some of the major ones did get a lot months and they were supposed to go live there, you know, which is that’s hard. So you have the stories of the tribe moving north and leaving all their land behind that they were used to inhabiting. And then some of the tribes, I think just, they just kind of ceased to be, which was very sad.

Nicole (31m 48s):
Yeah. I feel like the Arapaho are there in Texas and also you’re right. Like there must’ve been a lot more than it sounds like as tribes that were, you know, originally in the east kind of got pushed west, they ended up in Texas for awhile. It would be interesting to learn more about that. So maybe that would be a topic for a future blog post or,

Diana (32m 7s):
Oh yeah. That would be, that would be so interesting. You know, it’s interesting to think of that with any state or any area who were the first people who were the indigenous people living here, where did they go? What happened to them? You know, is there still a reservation for them in the area or were they pushed completely out of the area? So a lot of different things to think about.

Nicole (32m 30s):
Yeah. And when we have our like memories of our ancestors and their writings, some of them who wrote down diaries and letters and journals and things that settled in Utah, I have read their experiences with native Americans there. And it’s interesting to hear how sometimes they got along really well. They were friends other times they were afraid of each other. And I think that fear crossed a lot of writing and just

Diana (32m 58s):
Misunderstanding,

Nicole (32m 59s):
Misunderstanding. Yeah. And it’s sad to read about it, but I just remembered that one story of one of our ancestors who had red hair and the native American man called him head on fire because of his red hair.

Diana (33m 12s):
And they were, that was a friendly relationship. They shared food. And if I remember right in that story, that was a friendly, friendly thing. Well, I’m just looking at, it’s called the Texas state library and archives commission website, which is just fabulous. Texas has so many wonderful resources online for research, just so great, but it does talk about the Apache and that they dominated almost all of west Texas and ranged over a wide area from Arkansas to Arizona. And that when the ankles began moving into Texas, they cultivated a friendship with them as a bulwark against the command cheese. But that wrote down in 1842 because of an unsolved murder of a chief who they believed was killed by whites.

Diana (33m 56s):
And then that group of Apaches moved across the Mexican border. So there’s a big history of all the different tribes. And you can go read about that really interesting article kind of giving, giving a breakdown of each of the tribes. And there’s a lot

Nicole (34m 14s):
Great. We can put that in the show notes because I think that’s a really important part of Texas history too.

Diana (34m 19s):
And you know, you have a lot of stories of, we run into a few client projects where people have an ancestor and native American who was in that Texas area. And so that can be really difficult to track down who that ancestor was, but learning the history and the different tribes is certainly a first step to understanding what might’ve happened.

Nicole (34m 43s):
Yeah, that’s a good point. And of course you can, you know, do some research in DNA evidence. And if you’re going to try to track native American ancestry and through DNA, we, we really recommend testing at 23andMe because of their ancestry composition chromosome browser that can tell you which segments might’ve come from native American ancestry.

Diana (35m 4s):
Right. And do you need to get a candidate for mitochondrial and Y-DNA? So, because the haplogroups have been pretty well established, you know, the native American half the groups, so right.

Nicole (35m 16s):
And I think a lot of people think, oh, well, I’m not a natural lineal descendant. So I can’t do mitochondrial. But if there’s any lines that survive to today, you can track down that person and ask them to test. Then it’s still a possibility.

Diana (35m 30s):
That’s so true. Absolutely. Yeah. We had a client project that was a native American story and they had a Y-DNA tester and connected to a haplogroup that originated up in Canada in the American first nations. And so that was so helpful in tracing the line and, you know, trying to figure out the story so really, really helpful to get those groups.

Nicole (35m 59s):
Great. Well, this was a fun episode. Thanks for organizing all this information so that we could read about it in your blog post and talk about it today. And a lot of people have ancestors who either pass through Texas or lived in Texas are still, are living in Texas. So this is a great place to learn about.

Diana (36m 16s):
Yeah. And the land records are searchable. You can actually get your hands on them and learn from them. So we’re going to have a lot of fun talking about land in Texas for a bit.

Nicole (36m 26s):
All right, everyone have a great week and we’ll talk to you again next week. Bye.

Diana (36m 30s):
All right, bye. Bye everyone.

Nicole (36m 31s):
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 books, Research Like a Pro and Research Like a Pro with DNA on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our online courses or study groups of the same names. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com/services. To share your progress and ask questions, join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our courses to get updates in your email inbox each Monday, subscribe to our newsletter at FamilyLocket.com/newsletter. Please subscribe, rate and review our podcast. We read each review and are so thankful for them. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro.