Still Live at the Land and Tax Retreat

Thursday afternoon–Holly T. Hansen is presenting a “Practicum on the United States Census Records” and how to link census to marriage and property records.  Marriage is the first event in your ancestor’s life to document. Marriage is essential to and affects property ownership and inheritance.

Holly has created a new Census Data Chart showing what information was asked for each census year.

  1. Did you know  that the 1840 census recorded persons engaged in navigation on the ocean, on lakes, rivers, and canals?
  2. Did you know that the 1840 census also asked for scholars attending universities and colleges, academies, etc.? In some schedules, the persons attending are named!  The enumerator took the instructions literally and instead of a slash mark, the name is written in.
  3. Did you know that the 1840 distinguishes between male free colored persons from female free persons of color?  The State of Maryland  had many free persons of color who were Black.  This category, however, also included Native Americans and other ethnic persons not considered white.

This kind of evidence could unlock a brick-wall pedigree. So we have learned about expanding our knowledge and thus, our evidence base for hard-to-find ancestors.

Tomorrow is our last day for this Retreat with classes on “Cadastral Mapping,” “City Directories,” and Heritage Collector Software that enables you to organize and call forth documents as well as photographs and genealogical references needed to fully document your genealogy.  Then 6 more hours of research at the Family History Library using what we have learned in the classroom.

A truly great day today!  Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

Stay tuned for more research tips that will enable you to break your losing streak.

This entry was posted in Blog. Bookmark the permalink.