Mappy Monday - At Home on the Prairie

Last week I posted about my experiences locating land records for my Great Grandfather's Dakota Territory homestead.  I still have memories of riding out to "the farm" during visits to North Dakota as a child, but that was years ago.  Now I wanted to have a better idea about exactly where the land was located and even what it might look like now.

Thanks to The Library of Congress, I found the vintage map of the Hillsboro Township pictured above.(1)  There, in the SE corner of Section 2 was my Great Grandfather's property, identified on  this map as 160 acres belonging to Peter Myren.  The actual land patent was in the name of Peter Peterson, but by the time Peter was naturalized in 1890, he had taken the name of Peter Peterson Myren.(2)   As with many Norwegian immigrants, Peter had added the name of the farming area where he had lived  in Norway (Myren) to his name in the United States.  This map printed in 1900 showed his name as listed in the land patent.

Google Earth provided me with a current view of Peter's homestead.  The Myren homestead is outlined in red, and the Google Earth image could well be an overlay for the vintage map shown above.  I especially love this view of the property because it is so different from my home.  Land in the hills and hollers of East Tennessee is "horizontally challenged" to say the least, and it is rare to see property around here delineated with such straight lines.

Hillsboro, North Dakota, (Google Earth, April 2, 2012 image)

Today the homestead, to the best of my knowledge, is still intact, and the 160 acres are still owned by a Myren descendant.  The property has remained a working farm for well over 120 years.  I'm glad to finally have records and maps to document this part of our family's history.

(1) 'Map of Traill County".  [Date of Map and Data is unknown].  https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4173t.la000594/
(2)  North Dakota. Traill County. Naturalization Records.  North Dakota State Archives, 

Extra! Extra! Read All About It

  Today, thanks to some teacher friends, I learned about the  South Carolina Digital Newspaper Project (SCDNP).  This project is digitizing historically significant newspaper issues so they are available for our use.  What a wonderful, free resource to have, particularly as we try to look at our ancestors in the context of where and when they were living.

During February, in honor of Black History Month, the SCDNP blog will be featuring "influential people and events in the African American community of South Carolina".(1)  The headline below from one of their informative posts, and the article has a number of links to other newspaper articles around the country that reported on Emancipation Day. 

The headline of an article detailing Charleston's upcoming celebration in the South Carolina Leader
(Charleston, S.C.), December 23, 1865

The South Carolina project is part of the larger Library of Congress Chronicling America Historic American Newspapers initiative.  Warning:  the Chronicling America site can be addictive.  Before I realized it, I had spent about half an hour looking at old newspapers, especially the ads, from the 1898-1899 Texas newspapers, the time my Great Aunt Miriam has written her "Variety Book".  It was fascinating to see more things that might have been part of her life at that time.

This post is deliberately short because I hope you will spent time browsing or researching in this historic newspapers.

(1) "Emancipation Day."  South Carolina Digital Newspaper Program.  SCDNP Blog, posted February 6, 2013. http://www.library.sc.edu/blogs/newspaper/2012/02/06/emancipation-day : accessed 7 Feb 2013.

Mappy Monday - Thanks For The Tip

Last week a Genealogy Tip of the Day mentioned that many of the Bureau of Land Management Tract Books were now available for searching online through FamilySearch.org (1).  This was a tip I definitely wanted to follow up on since my Great Grandfather Peter Peterson Myren had been a Dakota Territory homesteader.

Previously I had searched the General Land Office Records on the Bureau of Land Management's web site and found information about Peter's homestead.  The BLM's database showed that his 160 acres were in Trail County, North Dakota and indicated the township (145N), range (050W) and section (2).  I also learned that Peter was issued the land patent on Feb 10, 1882.  I felt confident using a database compiled by a US government agency on that agency's web site, but I was interested in looking at the digitized images on Family Search.  After all, it is always good to get as close as possible to the original record.

The tract books on Family Search are not indexed, but I was able to find the entry for Peter's property in a short time.  I began by selecting the Dakota Territory books to search then opening five or six volumes (volume numbers follow the tract number sequentially).  Basically, I looked at the first written page of a volume until I located the volume with tracts located in the 145N050W area.  Below is the entry for his homestead.

Bureau of Land Management Tract Book, Dakota Territory, volume 65, page 16

From the tract book image I also learned that Peter had paid  $10 for his 160 acres, and the actual date of sale was October 21, 1879.  It even listed the receipt number for this transaction. The column "By Whom Patented" provided some new information.  The note indicates that under the [Land] Act of June 15, 1880, the land was recorded as a cash sale of $382 on April 13, 1881.  Now I want to learn more about the Land Act of June 15, 1880 and why the BLM database listed the patent issue date as Feb 10, 1882.  Once again, new information leads to new questions.  On it goes ...

If you are not already a regular subscriber to Genealogy Tip of the Day, I recommend you take a look at this blog.  Each day's post is usually just a few sentences, enough to point you to a good resource, a research technique, or a new way to look at a puzzling issue.  Check it out here

1.  (c) Michael John Neill, "Genealogy Tip of the Day," http://genealogytipoftheday.blogspot.com, 1 Feb 2013.

Genealogy By The States : Georgia - The Cherokee Land Lottery

Jim Sanders of Hidden Genealogy Nuggets (www.hiddengenealogynuggets.com) has a series of blogging prompts, Genealogy By The States.  Bloggers for each week focus on a specific state.  This week I'm sharing about our fourth state, my home state, Georgia.

Museum at New Echota, Calhoun, Georgia
by Cculber007 at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

If your ancestors lived in northwest Georgia in the mid-1800s, they may have lived on land that was distributed through the Cherokee Land Lottery of 1832.  For Georgians, that is basically the area that today is somewhat north of I-20 and west of Atlanta to the Alabama line.  The history of property in that area is also part of the history of Georgia and its land settlement.

Photocopy of original plat of lottery drawing

Among my father-in-law's papers was a copy of the original land lottery deed for the property where he lived for over 60 years.  The original owner of the property is named in the transcription below.

No. 67
160 acres
State of Georgia
The above Plat is a representation of the Tract or Lot of Land drawn by Jasper McCrary of Camp District, Warren County, situate in the 14th District Third Section in Cherokee County, containing One Hundred and Sixty Acres which is known and distinguished in the plan of said District by the ...
Given on the 2nd day of June 1832.
By Stephen Drew, Surveyor

Wanting to learn about the property's history lead us to explore several interesting resources starting with The Cherokee Land Lottery by James F. Smith, published in 1838.  The book, available as a free Google ebook, contains "a numerical list of the fortunate drawers in said lottery and an engraved map of each district" and is indexed with the list of those persons who received lots.(1)

We also consulted The New Georgia Encyclopedia where we learned about the history of the land lottery process as well as the names of the 10 original counties formed from the Cherokee Land Lottery - Cass, Cherokee, Cobb, Floyd, Forsyth, Gilmer, Lumpkin. Murray, Paulding, and Union. (2)  At the time of the lottery, all the property was considered to be Cherokee county.  Very soon after the lottery, the 10 counties were formed, and today this same area is part of over 20 counties.

Fortunately for us,  Georgia's Virtual Vault includes the District Survey Field Notebooks written as the land was surveyed in preparation for the lottery.  As we read through the notes for the lots around Lot 67, District 14, Section 3 we could imagine ourselves walking along creek banks, over hills, past a house, just as the surveyor had done.  We also found in the Virtual Vault a copy of the surveyor's map, showing the area creeks and notations as to the presence of maple, hickory, white oak, and pine trees along the boundaries of Lot 67.

According  to U.S. Federal Census records for 1840-1860, Jasper McCrary continued to live in Warren County.  He apparently did not choose to move into what was then Murray County to live on his lottery land.  The land lottery's purpose was to distribute land and contained no requirement that the individual settle or cultivate the land, only that they pay the necessary fee to register the land.  The photocopy of the back of the original deed shows that McCrary did register his property although the exact date is difficult to read due to a tear in the document.  

McCrary's original 160 acres changed hands several times and was eventually broken up and sold in smaller sections.  The Nelson family purchased over 40 acres from what had been Lot 67 in the mid-1950s.  Even the deed for this more recent purchase contained some of the picturesque surveyor's language as the plat was described as "starting at a certain old oak tree and walking"  toward other landmarks along the boundaries of the acreage.

The Mesa Arizona Family History Center has an informative PowerPoint slide show  about the Georgia land lotteries.  These land lotteries were another part of Georgia's fascinating history and might also be part of your family's history too.

1.  Smith, James F.  The Cherokee Land Lottery . 1838.  PDF download.  Google Books. http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Cherokee_Land_Lottery.html?id=4fQxAQAAMAAJ : 2013.

2,  Gigantino, Jim.  "Land Lottery System", The New Georgia Encyclopedia.  http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3299&hl=y : 2013.