Month: June 2010

It’s help­ful to get a quick look at what mil­i­tary ser­vice records can or do exist for your ances­tors, as these records can pro­vide a wealth of infor­ma­tion. While I intend to take this list of ances­tors back to the French-and-Indi­an Wars, tonight, I will just go back to the first World War. My father… Con­tin­ue read­ing Mil­tary Ser­vice Check­list

In the Vir­ginia class today, Bar­bara Vines Lit­tle took us through a cou­ple of exam­ples where small nuances in the law of inher­i­tance could help us sort through pos­si­ble rela­tion­ships in land records. She also walked us through a vast array of map resources for Vir­ginia. I will write a sep­a­rate arti­cle about those. After… Con­tin­ue read­ing IGHR (Sam­ford) — Day 5 — Inher­i­tance, Maps, and The Biog­ra­phy of Job

The fourth, and penul­ti­mate, day at Sam­ford is always bit­ter­sweet. It’s the last full day, and is capped with the ban­quet. In the Vir­ginia class, Bar­bara Vines Lit­tle talked about land tax records and migra­tion trails and set­tle­ment clus­ters. We also had a mini-course on land plat­ting and Deed Map­per from Vic Dunn. The last… Con­tin­ue read­ing IGHR (Sam­ford) — Day 4 — Migra­tion, Plat­ting, & Blacks in Ante­bel­lum Church­es

Today’s IGHR course in Vir­ginia geneal­o­gy got to the heart of the mat­ter: West­ward migra­tion and Vir­ginia (and Vir­gini­ans) in the Rev­o­lu­tion, the War of 1812, and the Civ­il War. It felt like we were cram­ming a week’s worth of instruc­tion into each 75-minute seg­ment. And, indeed, there are a lot of events and a… Con­tin­ue read­ing IGHR (Sam­ford) — Day 3 — O! the Fatal Stamp!

In the “Records of Oth­er Researchers” por­tion of the Vir­ginia class at Sam­ford today, we took a look at a vol­ume enti­tled The Pre­ston and Vir­ginia Papers of the Drap­er Col­lec­tion of Man­u­scripts. (Madi­son: State His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Wis­con­sin, 1915). This vol­ume cat­a­logs a sub­set of col­lec­tions of the Drap­er Man­u­scripts, papers gath­ered by Lyman… Con­tin­ue read­ing IGHR (Sam­ford) — Day 2

It’s a tru­ism of geneal­o­gy that the laws deter­mine what records might be avail­able. One also hears an echo of Hal Hol­brook in All the Pres­i­den­t’s Men: “Fol­low the mon­ey!” And, as Carl von Clause­witz said, war is the con­tin­u­a­tion of pol­i­tics by oth­er means. Put these togeth­er, and you see that aside from vital… Con­tin­ue read­ing IGHR (Sam­ford) — Day 1

We arrived in Birm­ing­ham last night at about 8, and got our room at the Home­wood La Quin­ta. It’s an excel­lent hotel, and the staff is help­ful, and even inter­est­ed in my step­son’s trum­pet play­ing, but it would be nice to have wi-fi inter­net in the rooms, and not just in the lob­by. I walked… Con­tin­ue read­ing IGHR (Sam­ford) 2010 — Reg­is­tra­tion Day

On my way South and West to attend the Insti­tute of Genealog­i­cal and His­tor­i­cal Research, I took time out to stop into the Nation­al Archives  South­east Region­al Branch in Mor­row, Geor­gia (near Atlanta). This branch serves the states of Alaba­ma, Flori­da, Geor­gia, Ken­tucky, Mis­sis­sip­pi, North Car­oli­na, South Car­oli­na, and Ten­nessee and pro­vides doc­u­men­tary records (tex­tu­al… Con­tin­ue read­ing The Nation­al Archives at Atlanta

I’m in the town of Gas­to­nia, North Car­oli­na, on the road to the Insti­tute of Genealog­i­cal and His­tor­i­cal Research at Sam­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in Birm­ing­ham, Alaba­ma. This will be my third year in a row at Sam­ford, hav­ing attend­ed in 2008 to study mil­i­tary records with Craig R. Scott, CG; Rick Sayre, CG; et. al. Last… Con­tin­ue read­ing On the Road in Gas­to­nia, North Car­oli­na

Today’s news includes the report of the dis­cov­ery — at an estate sale in Char­lotte, North Car­oli­na — of a slave-era pho­to of two young boys, one iden­ti­fied as “John,” and anoth­er uniden­ti­fied, pho­tographed by the Math­ew Brady stu­dio, prob­a­bly by Brady’s assis­tant Tim­o­thy O’Sul­li­van. It’s a stun­ning pho­to­graph. One can see the toll slav­ery… Con­tin­ue read­ing Slave-Era Pho­to Found