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eLearning Series: Geneology
My Family Tree is Important to Me
( 50 articles in this series )
Your
Family's Past: Property Records Can Help
Property records can tell you a lot about
your family’s past. Real estate leaves a paper trail. Deeds,
wills, deeds of trust, property transfer agreements, mortgages,
homestead records, land grants, all can go a long ways towards
helping you trace the path that your ancestors took to reach
the area where you grew up.
Once example of how some people use property records when
tracing family roots involves the family of the American
pioneer and explorer Daniel Boone. Boone is well known as an explorer,
who opened up the Kentucky wilderness to settlers, and the
state of Kentucky lays claim to him for sure, but he lived
many other places as well. Daniel Boone grew up as a child
of Quaker parents. His family originally emigrated from England
to Pennsylvania and owned property there. They eventually settled
in North Carolina and Daniel learned his love of the outdoors
in the North Carolina wilderness where his family owned property.
But when Daniel Boone came of age he traveled a great deal,
and in addition to exploring, he settled. He purchased land
in Virginia and settled there for a time, and later did the
same in what would one day be Tennessee. So you can see that
the Boone family itself lived in four states – or what would
eventually be four states – before migrating to Kentucky, state
number five. But Daniel always longed for better land with
fewer neighbors and sought elbow room. After many years in
Kentucky he moved to the Spanish wilderness near the Mississippi
River, near the city of St. Louis in the present state of Missouri.
Daniel’s son, Nathan Boone, had his father’s wanderlust and
went down to the southwest corner of Missouri to found the
small town of Ash Grove, in the corner of the state that is
near the current Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas borders. Property
records of the time form a clear paper trail of the travels
of the Boone family, Daniel and his children that are used
by the many researchers today who claim ancestry of Boone and
his kin.
The small town of Ash Grove holds a gathering once a year,
the Nathan Boone festival, to honor this early pioneer. With
an average of 200 descendants of the Boone clan coming into
the town to visit the restored old Nathan Boone homestead.
Copies of the land records are available in the adjoining museum
for all to see.
The Boone family is just
one example of how American families traveled, and how land records can be used to map the moves.
The Jameson family is another prime example. Originally from
Virginia, they moved east to Tennessee and Kentucky like the
Boones, and then on to Missouri, but they didn’t stop there.
On to Kansas, and then westward, the Jameson’s were bound for
California because of talk of a gold strike, but didn’t get
quite that far. When they reached Utah poor health caused them
to cut the journey short. Today they own a great deal of land
in Salt Lake City, all travels documented by land records.
But one member of the family didn’t stay put. Land purchase
records indicate that the youngest son of the Jameson’s actually
went back east, to Ohio, where he bought land in the city of
Cleveland and became a shopkeeper.
One genealogical researcher, tracing her lineage back to England,
was delighted to find such extensive property records in the
old country. Her family was poor, but they owned a small farm,
and paid taxes on it every year, which gave her access to a
great deal of information about her ancestors that she would
not have had otherwise. This of course led to records at the
local church, and helped her in her quest to find her family
roots. In her case, it seems that the family went from Wales
to England, and was granted a small piece of land for services
performed for a nobleman. Amazing what one can find when researching
property records, isn’t it?
When you do genealogical research there are many tools you
will find of value. Check out property records and add them
to your tool kit and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the
new wealth of information they present.
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by SolveYourProblem.com
: 2006
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