VIEW EAST SHOWING DETAIL OF WEST ELEVATION AND SURVEYORS IN FOREGROUND (enlargement of 4′ x 5′ negative) – Gary Land Company Building, Gateway Park, Fourth Avenue & Penn Street (moved from Broadway), Gary, Lake County, IN. Digital ID: (None) hhh in0285.photos.064906p http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.in0285/photos.064906p.Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student

Well we finally got the subject I really wanted to learn more about.  Yep, homestead records!  They are one of those little known record sets that make people want to *face palm* after they realize they should have looked there years ago.

Thankfully for those of us who don’t know a lot about these records, our instructor spends a few pages on the history of homesteading.  I did not know that the pre-cursor to the Homestead Act of 1862 was the 1841 Preemption Act.  This act allowed people who were squatting on land prior to it being surveyed by the federal government  to purchase it from the government before it went up for public sale.  The act gave settlers the peace of mind that if they were on a piece of land before surveying was done they could eventually own the title to it.

Alternatively, the Homestead Act allowed people to receive a piece of public land for free as long as they met certain criteria.  They had to:

• Be over 21 years of age, the head of the household, or a widow / deserted wife
• Own less than 160 acres of land
• Either a citizen of the U.S or have an official declaration filed to become a citizen
• Never fought again the U.S. or aided their enemies
• To keep the land they had to cultivate and improve it for 5 years

Continue reading →

Land office, Oklahoma. (digital file from original neg.) ggbain 02285 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.02285Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student

Why should you use land records?  It’s a great question.  Do you have an answer?  In my intro post to the US Land Records course, I talked about why I like land records, but those are not the only reasons.  So, what makes them so special?

I was very excited when our instructor, Kyle J. Betit, covered this topic in the first module.  His points were valid and if you are still not sure that you want to take a course about boring old land records hang on.  Simply, once you determine if your ancestor could have owned land your research will take off.  As with all government agencies there is a paper trail that follows land records.

Let me share a few things you could uncover in those papers:

• Discover unknown family relationships
• Information on immigration and naturalization
• Social status in the community
• Migration pattern across the US
• Occupations

That is an abbreviated list but I am sure you can see how this information can aid your research.  Particularly in places where vital records are non-existent and any information you discover is amazing.  However, you need to understand the process, the documents which were created, as well as what is still extant today.

Continue reading →

Homesteaders working in garden. Austin Homesteads, Minnesota. fsa 8c51450 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c51450Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

You have heard me say this about all sort of things, but bear with me. Land records are awesome and full of hidden information! There, now that I have said that let’s talk about why I am excited to take the course US Land Records.

Yes, if you couldn’t tell, I have looked at and poked through land records in the past. I admit that I don’t know everything about them which is why I am looking forward to this course. Hopefully it will fill in any holes in my knowledge base and then I will wring more information out of them in the future.

As usual the syllabus is very extensive. I like that the first week looks like it will be all history, definitions, strategies for searching, and essentially a base to build  from. From there the course takes us through colonial land records, grants, homesteading, deeds, and it ends with a state-by-state resources section. A lot of information, but information a good researcher needs to know.

For me land records come in handy because  my ancestors hail from various burned counties. When a researcher deals with courthouses that had a disaster occur (natural or man-made) you become a pro at locating alternative record sets to investigate. Land records for me have been a go-to record set when I try to reconstruct a family or area.

Continue reading →

cph 3a36056 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a36056 Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.prin

By Shannon Combs Bennett, Student

The United States has a long history of religious immigration.  As a country known for its religious tolerance and the ability for people to practice freely appeals to many.  Talking to other researchers many tell me the religions they think of with immigration tend to be those associated with Eastern European immigrants such as Judaism and Eastern-Rite religions.  However, there were other non-Christian religions that also immigrated.  These are all touched on in the U.S. Religious Records Part 2 course .

After the Civil War through to about 1910 over 20 million people immigrated to the US.  That is a significant number of people when you realize that the US population at the close of the war was a bit over 30 million.  Immigrants had an extreme impact on the US in all aspects, it would have been impossible not to.

Jewish immigrants were one of the largest communities that came over.  Module 5 of this course  covers Judaism.  The instructor not only covers the different forms but gives an extensive timeline and resources list for those who are researching Jewish ancestors.  In college I took a course titled “The 3 Abrahamic Religions” which covered Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  Let’s say that was a long time ago and while I still have a basic understanding I was happy to put some pieces together in my head for genealogy research.

Continue reading →

By Shannon Bennett, Student

US Religious Records Part 1 was a bit mind-blowing for me.  Let me explain why, because it might not seem like it should have been.  Let’s start with the fact that my parents are not religious and my grandparents were not either.  In fact, only a couple of my great-grandparents even attended church regularly.  It’s just not a thing in my family.  While some people find that odd, it was a decision made a long time ago that I never really thought about.

National Cathedral. Official standard prayer book of America, 1892. Library of Congress LC-H814-T-C04-249

I know that basic tenants of major religions.  My parents felt it was important for me to experience and learn as much as I wanted or could. They didn’t want to force religion on me but thought something that important was my decision.

It’s not like I have never gone to church, I have, but it was always as an intrigued outsider looking in.  When I was in elementary school my best friend was Jewish and the two of us would spend hours talking about Christianity vs Judaism much to the displeasure of her mom.

Just because religion isn’t a part of my life doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a part of my ancestors’ lives.  Which is why I was excited to take this course.  The three courses I took in religious studies at University helped lay a lot of historical basis for me, but of course they didn’t prepare me for what I need to know as a genealogist.

Records, documents, memoirs and so much more are waiting for us in these religious records.  Since a majority are not digitized this is a great example of how there could be information just waiting for us out there.  Waiting for us in a room and the only way we can break down our wall is to go there.  Sounds like a lot of fun to me!

Don’t be misled that this was easy.  There was a lot of information and I know this is only part 1 of 2 so there is more coming.  It makes me anxious to start the next section.  Wonder what I will learn in those pages?

See you online!