Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about Diana’s Clemsy Cline project. She researched three counties and made locality guides to help with research planning. Then she prioritized which collections to search.
Transcript
Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 227 Finding A Female’s Father, Locality Research, and Research Planning. 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 (42s):
Let’s go. Hi everyone. Welcome to Research Like a Pro.
Diana (49s):
Hi. Nicole. How. Are you today?
Nicole (51s):
I’m great. I’ve been having a lot of fun learning a new program to help with deeds and it’s called Deed Mapper.
Diana (58s):
Oh, great. I’ve heard of that, but I’ve never tried it. So tell me more.
Nicole (1m 2s):
Well, in my John West research project, there are a lot of deeds and the cousin I’m working with has already drawn by hand several of the plats. So I wanted to see how they fit together and I didn’t want to do it by hand, so I had heard of deed member and so I got that and set it up and have been learning how to use it and, and it’s pretty fun. It’s kind of like a puzzle. And so when you put all the deeds in and you put in like a topographical map as the background, you can set the scale to match up. So each deed has some clues about where the land is located and none of them say exactly where it’s located, but they usually say something like south of a certain creek or on the east branch of Turkey run.
Nicole (1m 48s):
And so once you get a bunch of clues like that and you can see how they fit together, then you can kind of start putting it down on the map. So it’s kind of a tricky thing to place them on the map, but it’s pretty easy to enter the deed and get the deed drawing.
Diana (2m 3s):
So I’m just envisioning this and you, you use this for deeds that are drawn with meets and bounds?
Nicole (2m 9s):
Yeah, but you can use it for the other type of
Diana (2m 12s):
Oh,
Nicole (2m 13s):
Okay. Federal land
Diana (2m 13s):
As well. That’s great. You know the one that’s township and range and sections,
Nicole (2m 17s):
But this is, I mean you don’t really need it for that because there’s other tools that have it already all drawn out, but you could use it for that. It has both systems. The deeds that I’m using right now are all measured in poles, but it has the different types of measurements on there too, if it’s written about, you know, if it’s written in a different type of measurement.
Diana (2m 36s):
Oh, that’s so great. I took a class at a conference years ago where we had the compass and the protractor and we actually drew it out using all the angles and different terminology and it was really fun to learn, but I don’t remember much about it. So, it sounds like it would be a great alternative to drawing it yourself.
Nicole (2m 58s):
It is. And one thing that’s great is if you’re doing Texas, it has ves or VAs, you can do that. It has chains, feet, R pens, purchase rods poles.
Diana (3m 9s):
I was just gonna ask about Texas if it would work there, so that’s good to know.
Nicole (3m 14s):
Yeah, yeah. Just as you put in each point and then you can put in a description of the line, you know, when it says and running along Colonel Lee’s line, then you can add that and then when you look at the deed, you can see those sides labeled and the corner’s labeled. If it follows a creek, you know, or the meanders thereof, then you can put that in and then it kind of just has like a dotted blue line to indicate that it’s following a creek.
Diana (3m 40s):
Perfect. Well I’m excited to see your map and to see what you discovered through using this great new tool.
Nicole (3m 47s):
Yeah, so far I’ve kind of been able to put a couple of them together and mostly I’m just trying to see where John West got his land and know he got some of it from Humphrey Arnold, just kinda curious who all the neighboring landowners were before Foer County was created in 1759. Humphrey got a bunch of land in 1851 when he was in Prince William County and then that part of it became foer. So I’m just trying to trace it back a little bit. What about you? How’s, how’s your work been going on the Cline project?
Diana (4m 18s):
It’s been going really well and we are gonna talk about that today. I am noticing that the research is taking me a little bit different direction than I thought, which so often happens, you know, we think we’re gonna go one way and then it takes us a different way. And so I’m having fun working on it and I am definitely seeing some places to apply DNA to it and I’m going to be using this for the DNA study group in the spring. I’m making progress. It’s been great.
Nicole (4m 47s):
Well, I’m excited to learn more about your progress and for our announcements today, we wanted to remind you that registration for research, like a Pro with DNA study group will begin December 1st and the study group will begin February 1st and go until May 10th and meet every week with the exception of three break weeks that we have for different conferences and extra time for research and stuff like that. If you wanna be a peer group leader, we’d love to see your application. You can submit that on our website and you can receive a complimentary registration for the study group. If you are accepted as a peer group leader, we encourage you to join our newsletter so you can see our updates on the blog and episodes of the podcast and any coupons that we’re offering.
Nicole (5m 36s):
Also, we’ll be attending Roots Tech and that’s coming up next year, Roots Tech 2023 and registration for that is open, so be sure to go to family search.org/roots Tech and they’re going to be holding it in person this time and virtually as usual, Roots Tech has always had a virtual option and they virtual option is much expanded due to, so that’s exciting. So be sure to register for both events. The in person event is $98 right now and they’re planning on having over 180 in person class sessions. So, it should be a wonderful event.
Diana (6m 11s):
Oh, I’m so excited for Roots Tech to be in person. It’s just so much more fun. I’m tired of online conferences even though I’ve been able to attend so many different ones. I just really am ready to get back to an in-person event and we did ngs, the National Genealogy Society Conference in Sacramento in the spring and that was fun, but Roots Tech is much bigger and we’ll be even more exciting. Well let’s get to our topic today. We are going to talk today more about my client project and in a previous episode we talked all about my objective and how I wanted to use the fan club, the friends, family, associates and neighbors to see if I could discover more about my brick wall female Clemsy Kline.
Diana (6m 60s):
She was born about 1817 in Alabama and died after 1880 in Wise County, Texas. And she’s just been, you know, a blank on my family tree chart forever. And I had noticed that there were these three Kline individuals in Morgan County Missouri in 1850 and I just decided it was finally time to research them more deeply and see if I could figure out something more about Clumsy because there’s just not very many records for a woman. So I had discovered three locations for research, just Morgan County Missouri where she was in 1850 and then one of her fans, Jacob Cline, was married in Wayne County, Kentucky.
Diana (7m 46s):
So I felt like that would be a good location to also research. And then Clemsy and her husband, Henderson Weatherford were in Isard County Arkansas for a brief time before moving to Missouri and So. It was time to really dig into those locations and see what I could learn. And so we’re going to talk about doing Locality research and then my research plan in those three localities. So let me just remind everybody about my objective. The objective of this research phase is to discover a candidate for the father of Mary Clemsy Cline. She was born about 1817 in Alabama and died after 1880 in Wise County Texas.
Diana (8m 29s):
Mary Clemsy married William Henderson Weatherford in about 1839 in Arkansas.
Nicole (8m 36s):
Fantastic. So the next step is to do Locality research and to corral all the information necessary for creating a research plan. It’s important to have a Locality guide and that gives you a place to add direct Links to relevant record collections and historical and geographical information about the Locality. So how did you do Locality guides since you have three counties that you were gonna research?
Diana (8m 60s):
Well, I decided to do three separate guides but really focus on the records and the history for the relevant time of the research. It would be pretty specific. So for Isard County Arkansas, I wanted to focus just on 1830 to 1850 because Clemsy and Henderson Weatherford were in Missouri by 1850 and I had him there in a tax record in 1839. So I just wanted to see if there was anything else I could find for him or for Cline, you know, the Cline family hoping for some fan club clients there.
Diana (9m 40s):
So digging into Isard County Arkansas, I was reminded that the challenge of this county is severe record loss. That county courthouse burned twice and the family search wiki shows county records don’t begin until 1889. So I’m pretty sure this is why this is such a challenging project because all the records that maybe could have shown probate or court records or marriage records are gone. So when we have this kind of aara, we have to look for other jurisdictions for research and luckily the tax records were sent to the state so they escaped the record loss.
Diana (10m 20s):
Interestingly enough, the microfilm for those tax records is no longer available, but a gentleman named Desmond Allen Walz did a wonderful service to Genealogist in Isard County by compiling a book of the tax list. And he created this in 1993. And so that’s what I had been using as my source. And I had already found Henderson Weatherford in the tax list for 1839 and 1845, but I could never find his household in the 1840 census, even though, you know, I searched the entire county for him. So you know, I hypothesized that maybe they were living in a Cline household.
Diana (11m 2s):
And so you know, now I can go back to those tax lists since I’m looking now for the fan club and hopefully find some clients. So it’s kind of disappointing, isn’t it, when you have a burn county and you’re hoping to do so much research there and then you find out that nothing’s available for the time you are researching.
Nicole (11m 22s):
Yeah, very disappointing. But also it can be validating to show like, oh, this is why I don’t know anything about this time period when the family lived there because those records were lost, they probably were there. Yeah.
Diana (11m 33s):
And when we do have brick walls, often that is the reason why this record loss. So we have to do other avenues, other research methodologies. So another thing that I considered when doing my Locality guide was the fact that Arkansas is a federal land state and so federal land patents would not be kept on the county level and so they would be an opportunity to research. And I knew that Henderson had not patented land, but if I’m looking for the Kline fan club, perhaps a Kline did. And so that would be a good research opportunity. After they got an initial land patent, then all the rest of the land transactions were recorded on the county level.
Diana (12m 18s):
And unfortunately those are probably not going to be there. You know, sometimes people would go back and rerecord deeds, but these people I’m pretty sure had moved and they, I’m sure they wouldn’t go back and re redo a deed after the house burned, you know, in 1889. So I’m afraid that the land patents could be the only land records that I would have, but those are a good record.
Nicole (12m 42s):
Yeah, and those are, I mean if that’s what you have, you’ve gotta figure out how you can use that.
Diana (12m 47s):
Right. So another option for the research that I wanted to add to my Locality guide was a nice collection of county histories or local histories because those can give you some details too. So even though the courthouse burned, people were writing about the county’s history in the 1880s or so and could give some insight about where the settlers came from, who were the early settlers. And so I was able to find several of those to add to my guide and those are always one of my go-to resources anyway, county histories are amazing. So I was really glad that I had that option to add those to my guide. So one of the fun things that I did for this new iteration of guides was to add an emoji.
Diana (13m 33s):
I was using Google Docs and so after a book or collection I would put a little icon or emoji is what it’s called on Google Docs showing whether it was a digital collection, a book at the Family history library, a digitized book or a book in my personal collection. And I colored those and I made a little icon key. So that was kind of fun. I got that idea from you.
Nicole (13m 58s):
I’m glad you liked it too. I thought it was fun to have a quick way to indicate if it was a digitized image or if it was only on microfilm or if it was only a book format at the Family History library. And you know, every time I make a guide I’m like, oh I could put all the online records together, but I wanted to kind of organize them in a different way, but I also wanted to see if they were digitized or not because it really helps you when you’re research planning to know if it’s gonna be available to look online.
Diana (14m 28s):
I know it really is helpful and it’s helpful since I live here by the Family History Library, if I’m doing my research plan, I can just really quickly look for the little red book, which is what I colored it for, the Family history library books so that I could see what I needed to look up and So I thought that was really helpful.
Nicole (14m 46s):
Red is like a stoplight like oh I have to actually like go somewhere to get that cuz I can’t just do it at home and green’s like, oh, I have it at home, I can just do it. It’s, it’s a green light.
Diana (14m 57s):
Yeah, and it just was fun. It was fun to add a little piza to my Locality guides. So for all of our listeners, I wrote a blog post about this and you can go see a screenshot of what it looks like and see how I put that in to my Locality guides. It was pretty easy and I hadn’t even thought about adding an emoji, but it was really easy. You just go to insert and there’s emoji right there. And then I would type in either book or computer and then selected the icon I liked and then, you know, you can have the color that you want, so kind of some fun things to do.
Nicole (15m 30s):
It is fun. They also have a film, like if you type in film you’ll see like an old camera film thing.
Diana (15m 36s):
Oh nice. I haven’t used that one yet. So if it’s only on microfilm, you could use that.
Nicole (15m 41s):
Yes, that’s what I was using.
Diana (15m 43s):
Oh that’s great.
Nicole (15m 45s):
That’s fun. Okay, so what about Morgan County Missouri?
Diana (15m 48s):
Well, Morgan County Missouri is an interesting location because Clumsy and Henderson Weatherford only left one record there, the 1850 census. But that is such a key record for finding Clemsy fan club because she has these two Kline children in her household and a few households away are a Jacob and Talitha Cline and they have a Mahala and Robert Cline listed after their nuclear household. So I’ve got these four individuals, I don’t know if they’re orphans or they’re divided up between the two households or you know what have you. But I was interested that the three of them have a birth in Arkansas, the younger children.
Diana (16m 29s):
And then Mahala was born in Alabama, which is where Clumsy was born. So you know, I’m hypothesizing that these are all somehow connected to her because they’re living right there and two of them in her household. So you know, I want to continue working in Morgan County. So I decided to do a little Locality guide basically from about 1830 to to a little bit later because this Jacob Cline, who I hope or think maybe could be a brother to Clemsy, actually stayed in Morgan County and So I thought, well I can expand my timeframe because even though Clemsy moved, Jacob stayed behind So I thought I would kind of include records in the 18 hundreds.
Diana (17m 18s):
And Morgan County has available records almost from its creation in 1833. So even though there would be a lot of records, I just added the records I thought would be useful. And I also knew that Missouri has many state records and historical collections to use and I knew quite a bit about Missouri research because I took an entire course, an institute course on Missouri. And while I was taking that course I created a Missouri Locality guide and I have all my notes from the course in that guide and Links to specific Google docs with more notes. So I had quite a few resources on the state level that I could use as well.
Diana (18m 3s):
And so that was really fun. And that’s what I like to do when I’m doing a Locality specific institute course, is just to create a Locality guide while I’m doing the course.
Nicole (18m 12s):
Yeah, it’s a really great time to do your guide because you’re learning so many things about it and sometimes it can seem like to just sit there and let the information wash over you. You think to yourself, I’m not gonna remember all these things So, it’s so nice to be able to just put what you’re learning into a a place where you’re gonna be able to use it.
Diana (18m 34s):
Yeah, it really is nice. I go back to that Missouri guide all the time because I just can’t remember everything, you know, none of us have that great of a memory, at least maybe some people do, but I don’t,
Nicole (18m 45s):
Wouldn’t it be great to have a photographic memory?
Diana (18m 47s):
Yes, for Genealogy it would be so fabulous.
Nicole (18m 52s):
But
Diana (18m 53s):
You know,
Nicole (18m 54s):
Speaking of memory, sometimes when I’m researching multiple projects at the same time, I will see a record with like a witness and the name stands out and I’m like, oh, this is exciting, this is like this name that I saw the other day and then I realize it was from a different project.
Diana (19m 10s):
Yeah, that’s funny. It’s
Nicole (19m 11s):
Not, not a clue. All right, well what about Wayne County Kentucky?
Diana (19m 16s):
Well, Wayne County Kentucky is an interesting one. I had not researched there before, but with that clue that Jacob Cline, one of Clemsy fan club members, had married to Letha R in Wayne County. I thought maybe that would be a place to find a possible father candidate. You know, I’m just trying to find a father that could be Clumsy s Father Jacob’s father, Mahala s Father, if they’re all siblings, or at least somebody of the the next generation back and online trees had traced Jacob Cline to a John Cline of Rocking and Virginia. And I didn’t wanna jump all the way to Rocking County Virginia without anything more that, But knowing that Jacob actually did marry in Wayne County, I decided to research Wayne County and see if there are any clues there.
Diana (20m 6s):
And that county, again has records from its beginning in 1800 and So, it could give some clues to acclaim migration. I found a really good map that I added to my Locality guide because it showed this map of Virginia 1847. It’s actually map of the chief part of the Western states and part of Virginia. It’s on the David Rumsey historical map collection website. And it does show that if he was really from Rockingham County Virginia, it would be a pretty straight shot over to Wayne County, Kentucky and then another straight shot west over to Morgan County, Missouri, just a little bit North So.
Diana (20m 47s):
It was really good to, to see that map and to realize these locations just were kind of a straight shot west. Isn’t that interesting? I had not really visualized the locations as well until I got that map.
Nicole (20m 59s):
Yeah, it’s really important to plot them out in relation to one another.
Diana (21m 3s):
And another clue is that Henderson Weatherford supposedly was from southern Illinois, which is right there, you know, it’s right there by Kentucky and Missouri. So all these locations that, I don’t know what I was thinking, that they were further apart. They really are right there. And so it’s possible that we could have this family migrating all the way through those states and it would make sense.
Nicole (21m 26s):
Well that’s good that it would make sense. It makes you feel like you’re on the right track.
Diana (21m 30s):
Yeah, the only problem is Alabama, I just don’t know where Alabama came from, where Clumsy was supposed to be born. So that’s another conundrum.
Nicole (21m 39s):
Hmm. Well good job putting together three Locality guides. Now that you have those completed, you can use them to identify which sources will be helpful to search for your objective. So tell us about that. What did you decide to do for each county for your research plan?
Diana (21m 54s):
Well, I generally like to just focus on one Locality, but for this one I felt like I wanted to do a little research in each county. And because Isard County is severely hampered by the record less, I really only had tax records, federal land, patents and county histories. And so I prioritized my list with the tax records first using the book and then the federal land patents and then the various county histories hoping that would give me some clarity on what was happening in Isard County at the time when Clemsy and her husband lived there. And also any mention of the clients. So that was, it was pretty easy to put that together because I had limited resources in Isard County.
Diana (22m 36s):
Yeah. So in Morgan County there was a lot more to choose from. So I made kind of a long list of things, even though I usually only like to put two or three, I just decided I would make this prioritized list and then it probably will be future research. I probably will not get to much of it, but I have it there listed out while I’m thinking about it. Just knowing that whatever I can’t get to in this particular project will just go into future research. And I think that there’s nothing really wrong with that as long as you realize that you may not have time to get to everything.
Nicole (23m 11s):
You have like some county histories too. So that’s a nice thing to include in the research plan.
Diana (23m 17s):
Yeah. And I again, wanted to look at some land and probate and census kind of your basic things. And at the, the very last item was court records because you know, those typically take a little bit longer to go through. However, I did find two collections that do have an index. So you know, lots of stuff to do in Morgan County.
Nicole (23m 39s):
Yeah, court records can take a long time to research, but often they’ll have these little tidbits that are so helpful that you won’t find details about anywhere else else, so.
Diana (23m 47s):
Right.
Nicole (23m 47s):
It’s kind of exciting, but kind of hard at the same time.
Diana (23m 51s):
Yeah, it’s just a lot of work to
Nicole (23m 52s):
Do. What did you plan for Wayne County Kentucky?
Diana (23m 54s):
Well, as I said before, Jacob Cline married to Letha Art in Wayne County and it was in the 1830s. So I wanted to take a look at Wayne County about that time. I didn’t want to go much further because you know, he’d migrated to Morgan County by the 1840s. So I wanted to look at tax records and see if there was some other Cline men there. And there was a nice collection from 1826 to 1830 and then again from 1833 to 1845. And we know that Kentucky has great tax records, so that could be really, really helpful in seeing who else is in the area.
Diana (24m 36s):
And then I wanted to correlate that with an 1830 census search for clients. And then again, I wanted to look for some land. I found a good resource that is at the Family History Library that has a really large group of records, marriages, vital records, census, pioneer sketches, just all sorts of things, Wills, probate. And so that would be a really good resource since I could access that at the library to, to do kind of a big blanket search to see what’s in that book. And then again, some county histories and land records. So there’s a lot. And again, that whole Wayne County Kentucky Research might be a different project if I don’t get to it.
Diana (25m 21s):
I’ve got that set up for another project because there’s quite a bit to do with these clients.
Nicole (25m 26s):
Yeah, it’s good to think about all the options and then realize you may not get to everything with your objective. You’re looking for candidates for the father of Clumsy Cline, so you’re kind of doing a survey of what’s out there. Right. So you’re, yeah, you’re looking for known information about your people, William Henderson Weatherford, which, you know, you focus on the man because at this time period there’s not a lot about the woman and looking for his fan club people with surname Cline. Right, right. And so you’re just kind of doing a broad search for anyone who could be a candidate. And that’s good that you have these three counties to look in so that you can gather up a lot of possible candidates and not neglect any ones that are out there because you never know where the clients moved to.
Nicole (26m 9s):
You know, these families migrated often together. Some stayed in the same place and then, you know, the wife would leave with the husband. So it’s good to kind of trace back in time step by step like you’re doing.
Diana (26m 20s):
It is good. And because I’m working on tracing these fans, you know, Jacob and Mahala Cline, it’s leading me to some different locations. You know, I, I had not researched Wayne County Kentucky before for this project because I didn’t have Clemsy in that county. So maybe that will open some things up I’m hoping. Or it could be that Jacob Cline was just a lone wolf and he alone went up to Kentucky and got married, you know, from the family. So if there is no sign of any other clients there, then that just gives me more information and a different hypothesis.
Nicole (26m 56s):
Well great. Thanks for sharing your research plan and your Locality research and it sounds like this project is going to be a good successful one to find more info about the clients and kind of get some ideas for what can be done next.
Diana (27m 9s):
Yeah, and I’m hoping to come up with a good, solid candidate for a father that I could test with dna and if not one candidate, that maybe two or more. We’ll see.
Nicole (27m 20s):
Well, fantastic, everyone listening, we hope that you’re keeping up with your research and, and doing your Locality guides to help you find new avenues for your research plans. And we will talk to you again next week.
Diana (27m 31s):
All right. Bye-bye everyone.
Nicole (27m 34s):
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 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.
Links
RLP 226: Using the FANs to Find a Female Ancestor’s Father – https://familylocket.com/rlp-226-using-the-fans-to-find-a-female-ancestors-father/
Using the Fan Methodology to Find a Female’s Father: Part 2 – Locality Research and Research Planning – https://familylocket.com/using-the-fan-methodology-to-find-a-females-father-part-2-locality-research-and-research-planning/
Using the Fan Methodology to Find a Female’s Father – https://familylocket.com/using-the-fan-methodology-to-find-a-females-father/
Research Like a Pro Resources
Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist’s Guide book by Diana Elder with Nicole Dyer on Amazon.com – https://amzn.to/2x0ku3d
Research Like a Pro eCourse – independent study course – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-e-course/
RLP Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-study-group/
Research Like a Pro with DNA Resources
Research Like a Pro with DNA: A Genealogist’s Guide to Finding and Confirming Ancestors with DNA Evidence book by Diana Elder, Nicole Dyer, and Robin Wirthlin – https://amzn.to/3gn0hKx
Research Like a Pro with DNA eCourse – independent study course – https://familylocket.com/product/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-ecourse/
RLP with DNA Study Group – upcoming group and email notification list – https://familylocket.com/services/research-like-a-pro-with-dna-study-group/
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