Diana and Nicole discuss Thomas B. Royston’s land and headstone in Chambers County, Alabama. Diana shares about her trip to Alabama, where she visited the cemetery where her third great-grandfather, Thomas, is buried and viewed the land he owned. They start with Thomas’s life in DeKalb County, examining the 1840 census and questioning the identity of “F.B. Royston.” The discussion moves to Thomas acquiring land through a federal land grant and his later move to...
On my recent trip to Alabama, I had the opportunity to visit Chambers County, where my third great-grandparents, Thomas and Cynthia Royston, settled in the mid-1800s. I visited the cemetery where Thomas was buried and viewed the land he owned. I previously wrote about researching him at the Alabama Department of History and Archives and the Chambers County Courthouse, and in this blog post, I’ll use that research as well as my previous findings to tell...
In this podcast episode, Diana and Nicole talk with guest Michelle Mickelson, AG, about the significance of the Homestead Act of 1862 in spurring westward expansion and its implications for genealogy. They explore how this act allowed people to claim and cultivate land in states like Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, and discuss how genealogists can access these land records through the National Archives, Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office, and...
Welcome to Part 3 of our six-part series, “Key Records and Repositories.” In this section, we’ll thoroughly inspect land and property records, emphasizing this region’s Spanish land grants. This module is particularly beneficial for genealogists researching family histories in the American Southwest. These records are a valuable resource, offering insights into land ownership, family linkages, and key aspects of migration, economic development, and legal structures that have influenced the region. After our discussion on the...
When you discover a lengthy file for an ancestor, how do you deal with the many pages it may contain and the information it holds? Do you transcribe it? Create an abstract? What if you can’t read some of the handwriting? Four tips can get you started in working with original documents. Transcription or Abstract – What’s the Difference? You may have heard the terms abstract or transcription in regards to genealogy and wondered about...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about United States Homestead Records. Do you have anyone in your family who took advantage of the Homestead Law of 1862? It is estimated that 2 million individuals applied for up to 320 acres of free land and your ancestor might be among them. We talk about two applicants for 320 acres in New Mexico about 1906 and 1911 and the details we learned about their family...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about how land grants and patents were received from the federal government. Diana tells about the process for our ancestors who applied for a land patent in federal land states and the papers that were created in the process. She ordered the Land Entry Case File from the National Archives for Thomas B. Royston and tells all about each paper contained in the file and its genealogical...
Today’s episode of Research Like a Pro is about United States land records, specifically deeds. We talk about how to use the deed index and how important it is to learn how the index is organized. Whether it’s a direct, indirect, russell, or other index, you will want to know how to find your relative’s name in it. We also talk about our ancestor, Edward Raymond Kelsey, and how we found a deed for his...
In our podcast episode today, Diana and I discuss several reasons to research land. A land record may reveal the following: a family relationship, clues to past or present residence, associates, evidence of migration, and more. We also explain the differences between “state land states” and “federal land states” in the United States system of land distribution. We look at the metes and bounds system of land measurement as well as the grid system (township...
How did your ancestors receive their land? Did they win the land lottery? Could they have received a bounty land grant for military service? Perhaps they homesteaded and lived on the land long enough to obtain a land patent. If your ancestor was the first person in the chain of land transfer, he would have either received the land directly from the colony/state or from the federal government. After the initial land distribution, the subsequent...
