The Old Poor Law (Part II)

While studying for my Archives Administration degree in Wales, I had to complete four miniature papers on various record types, which I figured I'd share here in order that the files could see the light of day again.

The Old Poor Law (Part I)

While studying for my Archives Administration degree in Wales, I had to complete four miniature papers on various record types, which I figured I'd share here in order that the files could see the light of day again.

Part II will include the documents produced because of the poor law. 

Resource: Texas Land Grants

Not all land grants your ancestors may have been a part of date from the period that the United States owned the territory, and states such as Texas and Missouri, to name a couple, were owned by other countries who gave out land to settlers. I discovered this website when I was considering a Texas based research project. It is similar to the BLM Land Grant site , just specific to Texas.

Link: Texas Land Grant Search

Tomorrow, I plan on posting about England's Old Poor Law.

Quick Tips: Marriage Records

Being that it's Super Bowl Sunday, I didn't feel like writing more than a brief post today. I'm not into sports at all (In fact, I picked which team I'm rooting for by the fact I like the colors and the city of one team over the other.), but I like watching the commercials.

Since I'll be focused on the TV tonight, I'm going to write about some success I've had with marriage records:

Marriage records are incredibly useful in regards to tracing your female ancestors, but there is something else you can determine from the marriage record that can be useful for finding early records of your family. If your family wasn't married by a Justice of the Peace (J.P.), I recommend taking note of who married the couple in question since you can possibly determine what denomination or religion your ancestors practiced.

Once you have the name, do a quick online search using the name of the pastor with the words 'church' and the general location of where your ancestors lived or were married. If that doesn't work, I'd try heading to a library to check out the local history books or indexes of local clergy. Once you know the church, then you can see if they have any baptism, marriage, or death records to further your research.

Who Do You Think You Are, Season 2 Episode 1

(Apologies for how disjointed this review is, I'm still trying to get the hang of it and this is the first time I've watched the US version of the show.)

Celebrity: Vanessa Williams
Aired: 4 February 2011

Resource: The Old Bailey Online, 1674-1913

Anyone researching their family history may have to prepare themselves for the fact that at some point one's ancestors were not always squeaky clean models of society. I myself have a rumored horse thief on my father's side and possible counterfeiters on my mother's side.

Resource: General Land Office Records

Public Domain Land


After the American Revolution, the United States took control of the lands that had been previously claimed by each of the colonies west of the Ohio River. In 1785, Congress passed the land Ordinance Act allowed the public domain lands to be sold for profit. When the land was sold, patents were issued to the person buying the property from the U.S. government. The land sold to the settlers form the bulk of the Eastern States Land Records held by the Bureau of Land Management. More than a billion acres of land and 7.5 million transactions are recorded in their office.

Homestead Act of 1862

The Homestead Act was signed into law by President Lincoln on May 20, 1862. This allowed any U.S. citizen or intended U.S. citizen who had not borne arms against the United States to file a claim to 160 acres of land. The homesteader had to live on the land for five years, during which he had to 'improve' the land by building a house and growing crops on the land. Due to the difficult conditions of prairie life, however, many people did not stay the full time. 

The Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 repealed the Homestead Act after millions of applications had been processed for government land. (Note: The Act was extended for ten years in Alaska with the last title under the law being given in 1988.)

For those of you fond of the Little House on the Prairie books, Laura Ingalls Wilder's father Charles Ingalls and her husband Alonzo Wilder filed claims for land under the Homestead Act. NARA has an article about them on their website: Link. 

You can look up land patents at the Bureau of Land Management: Link

(My 3rd great-grandfather Solomon Osborn Atchley purchased 40 acres in Indiana in 1838.)

Historical Note: Not all land west of the Ohio will have a land patent on this website. Missouri, for instance, was owned by the Spanish and French, and many people went west and got patents from those governments instead.

Sources:
Bureau of Land Management. "Our Record Keeping History." http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/reference/default.aspx#id=01_GLO_Records|01_Our_Record_Keeping_History.

National Park Service. "Homestead National Monument of America." http://www.nps.gov/home/historyculture/index.htm"

NARA. "Teaching with Documents: The Homestead Act of 1862." http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act/.

Ancestry Expert Connect Closing at Midnight

First of all, I'd like to welcome anyone coming to this blog. If you've come because of Ancestry's closing of Expert Connect, I have a few links at the end of this post to alternative sites that accomplish a similar purpose of hiring genealogists for research.

I started with Expert Connect about eight months ago and completed 38 projects in total, which were a mixture of record lookup, custom research, and ask an expert. All of my business came through them, and I am grateful that it gave me a start in researching professionally. The Expert Connect system allowed me to cultivate a growing client base, and I've never had any trouble with any of my clients. It also provided me some much needed income while I am looking for a job as an archivist.

About ten days ago, Ancestry.com sent the providers an email stating that, though not considered a failure, the company would be closing Expert Connect to new client requests as of February 3rd. A further email stated that on February 3rd, the Expert Connect page would be replaced with links to ProGenealogists (a company Ancestry.com bought) and the Association of Professional Genealogists.

I've had to rearrange what I was doing to get business, hence the creation of the blog. I can't pretend to know their reasons for closing EC, but I'm moving forward. Eventually I plan on joining the Association of Professional Genealogists, and a portion of my fees will be going towards professional development (conferences, equipment, and genealogy courses).

If you are looking for genealogical research and want bids from more than myself I have signed up at two websites that allow for genealogists to bid on projects:

Genlighten
My Profile: http://www.genlighten.com/profiles/megan-atchley
Genealogy Freelancers
My Profile: http://www.genealogyfreelancers.com/index.php?action=view_profile&profile_id=1874

Also, Directory of Genealogists is a new site listing for quite a few experts that were previously on Expert Connect and will be live soon:
Directory of Genealogists (At the moment, the list of genealogists resides at GeneaPro: Link)

Education in the United Kingdom (Before 1800)

While studying for my Archives Administration degree in Wales, I had to complete four miniature papers on various record types, which I figured I'd share here in order that the files could see the light of day again. 

Petty Sessions Records (United Kingdom)

What are Petty Sessions?