Follow-up Friday - Nov 3 2011

Last weekend I had a pretty good genealogy day over the weekend because I finally got my new desk set up. I heard that many of my genealogy pals got some good genealogy time put in over the weekend as well. I don't know if it's because the weather is getting cooler and we are staying inside more or if it's just because things are starting to slow down or what. But I definitely have a happy face on, despite the trials and tribulations I've been experiencing at work.

So in my genealogy news, I've been working on finding the parents of William Peters who was born in 1874 in Thomasville, Missouri. One of my DNA Family Finder matches believes the Peters line is our connection, however I don't have a leg to stand on because I can't get past William Peters. I did find a Martha Peters on the 1880 Oregon County, Missouri Census Report who could have been his mother as she had a young William living with her that fit my William. But then I got distracted by trying to trace this Martha to a James Peters family out of Anderson County, Tennessee. Turns out this family moved to Missouri and James disappeared leaving Martha to fend for herself and their 2 (or 3) children. Descendants of this family are not receptive to the idea of them having a son named William though, nor to the idea that Martha was living in Oregon County, Missouri in 1880! Another find I had is a newspaper article in which a John Peters was shot and beaten to death on his employer's farm by a gang of brothers in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I had heard my William was beaten to death but his death certificate said he died of a heart attack in Pocahontas, Arkansas. I wonder if maybe this John was William's father (or close relative) and he was the one the family remembers who was beaten to death. Only problem was that the 1880 Council Bluffs census says John Peters was single (William was born in 1874), he was living in Iowa and not in Missouri or Illinois where William was rumored to have been born, and John was from Denmark. Surely I would have heard something about Denmark in the family! Well the nice thing is that I've been able to comb through a bunch of newspapers that my University subscribes to.Click on this post to view newspaper article for the death of John Peters of Council Bluffs Iowa.

In addition to working on my Peters line, I have done some research on my Dunlap family in Stokes County, North Carolina.  Jesse Dunlap left North Carolina about 1820 and moved to Tennessee and then moved to Texas and then finally settled in Arkansas about 1840. His two sons, Jesse Dunlap, Jr and Lorenzo Dow Dunlap were killed in the Mountain Meadow Massacre of 1857 in Southern Utah. You might have heard about it. Click the above link for more information. Anyways, I started off my search in the totally wrong direction and it took a nice genealogist named Rex Bertram to set me straight. He sent me back to the North Carolina original records. So I have been combing through the Stokes County, North Carolina deeds (they are online – whoo hoo!), using the NorthCarolina State Archives online catalog called MARS to find land grants and wills, and compiling census records in order to piece together the history of the Dunlap family prior to their removal from North Carolina. This was also prompted by a Family Finder DNA match.

Lastly, I finished transcribing the estate files of John F. Dry of Perry County, Illinois. I happened upon these scans as I was making a list of files that I needed to scan during the next Scanfest. If you don’t know what this is, it happens the last Sunday of the month and it’s a time when genealogists all over the world get together in a chat room and chat while they scan their photos and documents. I usually do a pretty good job of keeping up with my scanning, but I always have a lot to catch up with after a trip to the library. These estate files were scanned once but at a very low resolution. I must have had a problem with the scanner. So they have not been transcribed. I did manage to rescan this set of estate files, so I was able to transcribe them. And then, my biggest feat of the week is that after reading Michael Hait’s blog post on Do you understand source citations? I decided to try my hand at writing an “official” citation to the estate file I was sent copies of and transcribed as mentioned above. It is probably missing several pieces because I was not the actual person who went to the courthouse and made the copies. In fact, I probably would have copied where the book sat on the shelf!

Anyways, here’s the citation I came up with (complete with footnote note):

John F. Dry Estate File No. 128, dated 1847; Perry County, Illinois Probate Records, Box 307; Perry County Courthouse, Pickneyville, Illinois. This estate file was copied by Stella Runyon, sarjas@hughes.net, Illinois, USA, in February of 2007 and sent to me by snailmail. Note that Stella told me this was file no. 158, however according to the Perry County Probate Index that is online at sarjas.com, and accessed 03 November 2011, (this is Stella’s homepage), it is file no. 128. I have change it to File No. 128 because I believe this index was compiled since 2007.

Check out Michael’s post if this citation doesn’t make sense to you!

My Most Important Encounter with Indirect Evidence

I recently read a couple of blogs in which the authors illustrated their first encounters with indirect evidence. In his post, My First Encounter with Indirect Evidence, Michael Hait talked about a Deed-in-Partition that a researcher told him about in which his ancestor was found selling a piece of land along with another person who was presumed to be his brother. Claudia C. Breland also discussed her experience with indirect evidence in her post, In Which I First Encounter Indirect Evidence. I would like to contribute my own experience with indirect evidence, albeit I’m sure it’s not my first experience, although I would say it was probably my most important one.

I have been looking for the parents of my ancestor, Elijah Godwin for years. He was born in Randolph County, North Carolina in 1801. He entered 200 acres of land in Randolph County, North Carolina in 1822, married Nancy Lewis in Randolph County, North Carolina in 1826, and was enumerated in Putnam County, Indiana in 1830.

Two likely candidates for parents of Elijah Godwin were Dred Godwin and Nathan Godwin who lived in Randolph County, North Carolina from 1800 - 1828 and who also removed to Clay County, Indiana in 1830 (Clay neighbors Putnam County).

Nathan Godwin disappeared after the 1830 census in Clay County, Indiana. Dred Godwin died and his children appeared selling off each of their 1/7th parts of his land in 1852 in Putnam County, Indiana. (See my previous posts on Determining the heirs of Netheldred Godwin via Land Records). I learned that 3 of Elijah Godwin’s children were born in Illinois between 1830 and 1833, so I started looking for Godwins in Illinois and I learned that Nathan had actually died in 1833 in Perry County, Illinois and his widow Sarah was living there in 1840.  

A nice researcher pulled the estate records of Nathan Godwin for me and made copies and sent them to me. In the estate records I learned that Elijah Godwin had purchased several items from Nathan’s estate and that he had signed an affidavit saying that Nathan Godwin had died September 17, 1833 in Perry County, Illinois! 

Although no relationship was indicated in this sworn affidavit, I believe Elijah Godwin to have been the son of Nathan Godwin. There is a lot more information and indirect evidence to support this statement which I have not included in this post for brevity; However this is the only piece of evidence that actually links these two men besides them simply living in the same county at the same time.

Having trouble finding a deed in FHL film

This is a repost from 2009. I was really looking for some feedback on this particular situation. Now that there are so many more experts out there, I am hoping to get some help in this area.

Ok, I've been going to my local Family History Library for several years now. I've had very good success in finding records that were pertitent to my genealogy research. I got stumped one year on some deed records that I am trying to locate. Here is my story. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I went to the FHL website's library catalog and in the Search Box I selected "Place-names" and in the "For" box I entered "Illinois, Perry."

A list of results came up. I then clicked on the "Land and Property" link to pull up the Perry County, Illinois records on Land transactions. I then clicked on the "Land Records, 1827-1950, index" link. This brought up a list of all of the microfilm from 1827-1950, including the Grantee and Grantors indexes and the deed volumes themselves.

The first film I ordered was the Grantor's index, 1827-1876, film no. 975892. When I viewed the film I listed the items I wanted to see the actual deeds of. The typical Grantor index allows you to search for the surname alphabetically, then usually the date, names of the parties involved, and book and/or volume and page number of the actual deed records are listed. This particular index included the names of the parties involved, the book and page number. Dates were not included. Here is my list:

Cornelius Godwin to James Huggins, Book 6, p. 14

Sarah Godwin to Wilson Godwin, Book 6, p. 45
Sarah Godwin to Wilson Godwin, Book 6, p. 45
Ezekial Godwin to Patrick M Farlin, Book 6, p. 446
William Godwin and wife to William A Allen, Book J., p. 221
Cornelius Godwin to Frederick Fleck, Book L., p. 273 (Mortgage)
Daniel Dry to John Woodrun, book A, p. 86, deed
Daniel Dry and wife to Jacob House, book B, p. 30
John F Dry to Edmond House, book B, p. 38
John F Dry to John House, book b, p. 39

Some of these entries reference a Book followed by either a number or a letter. Now I want to order the corresponding films in the Family History Library catalog and order them.

The first book I want to order is book no. 6.

The first options of films I have to choose from are Deed Book volumes A-Z and dates 1827-1873, contained in a total of 14 reels of film. Each film contains two letters of the alphabet. As the letters go through the alphabet, the dates associated with the films get more recent. Deed Book Volume A-B corresponds with dates 1827-1842. Book volume C-C1 corresponds with years 1841-1848 (volume C1 covers 1872-1878). And so forth.

The next set of films available are the Deed Book volumes 1-15 covering years 1872-1888. Since I was looking for Deed Book #6, I ordered the Deed Book v. 5-6 film no. 975910. This film covers 1876-1950.

A couple of weeks later the film arrived but it was not as I expected. This film did not contain deed transactions between two parties; It contained land grants that were issued to individuals from the state. And most of these land grants weren't recorded until 100 years later! For example, I found a land grant issued to John Huggins in 1854 that was recorded in 1923. I also found a land grant issued to Daniel Dry in 1838 that wasn't recorded until 1948.

Since I don't know the dates of any of these deed transactions, how do I know which films to order? Are these films only for land grants or deeds or both? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Oh and I didn't find what I was looking for in Deed book 6 either in case you were wondering. I'm afraid to order more deed books in case I'm not doing something right. I don't want to waste the time or the money.

Do you have any suggestions? Have you run into this before?