Growing Through Learning

As a rebellious teenager I was not an enthusiastic student. The run-of-the-mill curriculum in Texas was boring even all those decades before the war between science and religion in schools. As an adult taking evening classes after a full workday I came to appreciate formal education. I take pleasure in learning from great teachers in a classroom environment.

The importance of learning advanced and efficient techniques from an experienced practitioner cannot be overstated. Rapid advances in computer technology meant spending much of my previous career in training classes. My genealogical experience has been much the same. Newly discovered records, access methods, and evolving standards and research techniques have led to great progress in genealogical research. Trying to keep up through magazine articles and blogs is practically impossible when client projects and volunteer activities need our attention. But good professionals and advanced researchers understand the importance of allocating time and money for education.

This month I attended the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG) sponsored by the Utah Genealogical Association. I took the "Advanced Methodology" course coordinated by Thomas W. Jones, Ph.D., CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA. Some sessions were presented by Rick Sayre, CG, and Claire Bettag, CG. These are all top-tier speakers in the genealogical community. No one in the class was disappointed. Even sessions on topics I had attended before had updated material that I would have never known about if I didn't place such a high priority on continuing to educate myself. Practical hands-on exercises helped cement the concepts being taught.

For my money, institutes are a much better investment than conferences. Conferences are great for networking and getting an introduction to a topic. Institutes give in-depth exposure in a cohesive, coordinated group of sessions. In 2003 I took the "Advanced Methodology" course taught by Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR). Although the two courses have the same name and cover some of the same topics, any serious genealogist should consider taking both courses. Mills and Jones are both highly-respected researchers using advanced techniques. But different examples and different viewpoints expose us to more ideas. We learn not everyone works the same way. We see things that will improve our work procedures and some things that may not work so well for us. We can synthesize all we learn and come up with a procedure perfect for our own situation.

So, do you prefer the icy conditions at Salt Lake City's SLIG in January with the bonus of having the Family History Center a block away? Or the hot, humid atmosphere of Birmingham's IGHR in June with the bonus of a great university and law library? Or a third option, Washington, D.C.'s National Institute of Genealogical Research (NIGR) in July with access to the National Archives? There are "bonus points" for achieving a trifecta and attending all three institutes in one year. IGHR and SLIG both offer classes for researchers at all levels from beginner to advanced and professional. NIGR is designed for experienced researchers.

CG, Certified Genealogist, and CGL, Certified Genealogical Lecturer are service marks of the Board for Certification of Genealogists® (BCG), used under license by professionals who pass periodic competency evaluations by the Board.

© 2011, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

NARA: 1940 Census and Accessing Textual Records Stored Off-site

Two of my favorite blogs have articles related to records of the U.S. National Archives (NARA). Be sure to check these out for important information if you haven't seen them yet. If records you need are stored off-site, you will need to request retrieval to save frustration if you travel to Washington D.C. then can't view those records in the time you have available. Knowing where to look for upcoming information needed to prepare for 1940 census research is quickly becoming a priority; only fifteen more months until the 1940 census is available to researchers.

NARAtions: The Blog of the United States National Archives has an article titled "Are you interested in knowing which records from NARA’s DC-Area Textual Services Division in Off-Site Storage?" explaining how some records may take up to 72 hours to retrieve. A PDF list of records stored off-site is available at http://www.archives.gov/dc-metro/records-in-offsite-storage.pdf.

Rebecca Warlow of the National Archives explains NARA's plans for the release of the 1940 census in a comment to one of Dick Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter post titled "NARA to Release 1940 Census Records?". Be sure to scroll down to Ms. Warlow's comments to get the facts. The other comments are also interesting and informative.

© 2011, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

Texas Marriage Laws, 1836 (Gammel 1:1041)

The land we call Texas was first settled by Native Americans, then was part of Spain, France, and Mexico, before becoming the Republic of Texas. During the Spanish and Mexican years Catholicism was the official religion. Only Catholic priests could lawfully perform weddings. Due to the shortage of priests, settlers often married by bond or contract until a priest was available to sanctify the union of a couple.¹

Shortly after declaring independence from Mexico, the Texians had to form a new government and enact new laws. The Spanish influence was still strong even though many of the Texians were Anglo. On 16 January 1836 the legislature passed an act setting up courts and defining duties of clerks and others.² Section 9 of this act authorized "judges, alcaldes, commissarios, and regular accredited ministers of the Gospel, of whatever denomination" to celebrate the rites of matrimony in front of three disinterested and reputable witnesses. The officiant and two or more of the witnesses were required to sign copies of the certificate. One copy of the certificate was to be given to the bride, the other to be filed with "the archives of the municipality"³ (the county clerk after the new government was up and running). Notice that the officiant could be a representative of the government or a minister of any religion. A Catholic priest was no longer required. Interestingly, Spanish terms were still used for some officials: an alcalde was a mayor or the chief administrator of a Spanish town, a commissario was probably a commissioner. (See any Spanish-English dictionary or use http://translate.google.com/.)

Women had more recognition under Spanish law than under English common law.⁴ This Texas law specifically states the bride should be given the certificate. I interpret this as recognition that a woman could be entrusted with a legal document and might be more than a covered woman or a feme covert, even if she was married. A comparison to laws in many other states must be done before a definitive statement can be made as to the uniqueness of this statement in the Texas law. But a quick search in the online version of Hening's Statutes at Large for Virginia gets no hits for the word bride, except as part of a place named St. Bride's. The 1784 Virginia law states that a minister or congregation clerk must transmit a marriage certificate to the county clerk to be recorded, how much the county clerk should be paid to record the marriage, and the penalties for an officiant not filing the record in a timely manner.⁵ The law makes no mention of who else should receive a copy of the certificate, much less whether the bride might be given a copy.

A later clause in the 1836 Texas act described here legalized those contract and bond marriages that were not considered legal under Spanish or Mexican law:

all marriages heretofore celebrated by bond or otherwise, under the heretofore existing laws, are, in like manner, declared and decreed to be valid; provided, that all officers who have attended to the same, shall, on application of either party, or the friend of either party, file the bond or other evidence of such marriage, with the archives and records of the courts.

This law also declared "the issue of the parties legitimate."⁶ The declaration of legitimacy would minimize questions of inheritance that might arise later if the children had not been declared legitimate.

If a couple followed the law and filed a record with the county to legitimize a bond or contract marriage then ceremonies performed prior to the formation of The Republic of Texas may be documented in early county records. Don't assume a marriage date prior to 1836 means no record is available and overlook this possibility. Remember that some counties originally covered a much larger area than the modern-day county covers. Be sure you determine the county boundaries at the time of the early Republic to determine where to look for an early marriage record.

---

1.
Mark M. Carroll, Homesteads Ungovernable: Families, Sex, Race, and the Law in Frontier Texas, 1823–1860, 8th ed. (Austin, Texas: Univ. of Texas Press, 2001), xi.
2.
H. P. N. Gammel, comp., The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, 10 vols. (Austin: Gammel Book Co., 1898), 1:1039-1046, "An Ordinance and Decree for opening the several Courts of Justice, appointing Clerks, Prosecuting Attorneys, and defining their duties, &c.," 16 January 1836; digital images, University of North Texas, The Portal to Texas History (http://texinfo.library.unt.edu/lawsoftexas/ : accessed 1 January 2011).
3.
Gammel, The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, 1:1041-1042.
4.
Jean A. Stuntz, Hers, His,and Theirs: Community Property Law in Spain and Early Texas (Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech Univ. Press, 2005), 29.
5.
Freddie L. Spradlin, trans. "Laws of Virginia, October 1784--9th of Commonwealth," p. 505, Hening's Statutes at Large, Being a Collection of the Laws of Virginia, Virginia GenWeb (http://vagenweb.org/hening/vol11-26.htm : accessed 1 January 2011).
6.
Gammel, The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897, 1:1042.

© 2011, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

New Book: Proving Up: Domesticating Land in U.S. History

Like most genealogists my "to read" list grows faster than my "have read" list. My husband's only flaw is that he is not independently wealthy allowing me to buy every book I want. Of course, if I could buy all the books I want I'd also need a bigger house.

For years I focused on how-to books to learn the discipline of genealogical research. Then I started focusing more on historical essays trying to understand why my ancestors did certain things and what their life was like. I just read a review by Michelle Mart of a book by Lisi Krall titled Proving Up: Domesticating Land in U.S. History. The review made me add this book to my read soon list:

The mythic power of western land has long dominated narratives of American history. Lisi Krall seeks to challenge this myth, untangling the narratives into their component parts of philosophy, economic systems, political decision making, and spiritual awe. Her slim volume, Proving Up: Domesticating Land in U.S. History, successfully argues that the frontier myth was constructed foremost from a capitalist imperative superimposed on material circumstances. (See more of the review here.)

The SUNY Press page for the book has a button that allows you to download the introduction and another button to preview some pages of the book. The hardcover is pricy for a genealogist's budget, but there is a link to "Direct Text" that allows a PDF to be downloaded. I haven't used "Direct Text" before. The link indicates you have online access to the book for 180 days for about 1/3 the price of the hardcover. A paperback version can be pre-ordered for almost the same price as the PDF. I'd much rather have a PDF version, but not if I can only access it for 180 days.

While trying to determine if the PDF file is locked after 180 days I found this 2008 article from The Exchange Online: The Newsletter of the Association of American University Presses. This article seems to indicate the 180 day limit is for online access, but that you can download a PDF that might not have a time limit. I definitely need to learn more about this before I order a "Direct Text" book.

It would be great if all of the university presses made PDF versions of books available. Many of the books published by university presses offer exactly the kind of historical information a good genealogist needs to better understand family history. In addition to dollars, shelf space also limits how many books I can own. Electronic books solve the space issue.

If you have experience with a "Direct Text" book and know whether or not the PDF file is locked after 180 days please leave a comment so we will all know. I'm all for electronic books and saving trees but not so big on tying myself to one e-book reader. I prefer an open format such as PDF that I can read on my computer or any reader I decide to buy in the future.

© 2010, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

1860 Map of U.S. Slave States

The Map Room is one of my favorite blogs. Mapping American Slavery is a recent post with a link to a very detailed map of the American slave states showing slave and free populations and an article by Susan Schulten. Schulten states the map was even included in a portrait of Lincoln with his cabinet. The image of the portrait in her article is interactive—be sure to move your mouse over the image. I had not heard of Schulten before, but now her book The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880-1950 (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2002) is on my wish list.

This map (almost 30MB in size) can be extremely useful to genealogists and historians researching the southern states.

© 2010, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

From Deep Web to Deep Dust

Genealogical research has been revolutionized by the Web. We may look for the same records as before we had the internet, but many records are so much easier to access today. Search engines help locate information we might have never located in pre-internet days. Search engines read a Web page and follow the hyperlinks to other pages, indexing along the way. But there is also a side of the Web that is hidden to search engines—the invisible or Deep Web.

A lot of the best genealogical information is behind the wall of the Deep Web. Searches don't turn up most records on Ancestry.com, Footnote.com, GenealogyBank.com, or your county clerk's office because those records are hidden behind a wall. The information on those sites is usually stored in a database with pages created dynamically, on the fly. Those dynamic pages don't exist so can't be indexed by search engines without some intervention.

Newbie genealogists often start with Web research, finding the RootsWeb and personal pages that are indexed by search engines. Some of these pages may have source citations, but most don't. The publicity associated with "Who Do You Think You Are?" may bring the newbie quickly to Ancestry.com and other subscription sites. A lot of bad information may be copied into a database and files before the newbie learns to be more discerning about "genealogical research" as opposed to "name collection."

The experienced researcher spends more time on the original record images than in the unsourced trees and quickly learns to use the database indexes as clues to find the original records. Texas researchers soon learn about TexShare databases—available through most Texas libraries by obtaining a library card. With a login from the library the TexShare databases can also be accessed from home. Some of these same databases are also available in other states—check with local librarians.

But that still leaves the vast majority of the Web hidden from a researcher. There are some tools to help in finding useful items in the Deep Web and more of them are available every day. You might not realize you already use some of these tools. Google Scholar searches some sites that are usually hidden. Learn more about Deep Web Searching at:

The Deep Web

100 Useful Tips and Tools to Research the Deep Web

10 Search Engines to Explore the Invisible web

Don't get too complacent about the Deep Web, though. The vast majority of the records needed by genealogists aren't anywhere at all on the Web, deep or not. Most of them haven't even been microfilmed yet. Those records are sitting on the dusty shelves of court clerks, archivists, and librarians. Most of the problems we see as brick walls are solvable with that information that may be harder to access but does exist.

© 2010, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

Old and New: Time Marches On

Last week a scene in West Texas brought rushing thoughts about the link between old and new—technologies, families, traditions. Two months is a long time between blog posts. In my defense, these last two months have been packed with genealogical volunteer commitments, three conferences in three consecutive weekends, and some well-earned time off to visit family during the holidays. That family visit started with a 1,000 mile trip from the piney woods of East Texas to the Sonoran desert of Arizona. A drive through West Texas is usually a long, mindless trek without much to look at. I appreciate the stark beauty of the plains, but 400 miles of it with few breaks can allow the mind of even a true plains lover to wander.

Approaching Abilene we started seeing many more modern windmills than on our last trip four years ago. The towering windmills with long, swooping arms have a graceful beauty I find soothing. No new technology comes without drawbacks, but the windmills appeal to me. I bet lots of citizens complained about electrical poles and wires being erected across our lands back in the early nineteenth century as some do today about the windmills. If it helps us use less oil it can't be all bad.

We stopped and I took a few photos of the windmills. A few miles further down the interstate I saw an image that made me suck in my breath. My patient husband got off the interstate and drove several miles on the service road so I could take another photo. The framing isn't as exquisite as the view from the interstate was, but I wasn't willing to risk death for the perfect photo.

Old and new, side by side, sharing the wide open spaces. Of course, the image doesn't show the true size of the modern windmills which are much farther away than the old-fashioned windmill is. My husband's store of patience isn't enough to drive around the backroads for hours looking for the perfect photo, but I'll settle for this.

The old and new were evident in our holiday celebration, too. Daughters cooked all the dishes. I wasn't allowed in the kitchen. The dressing wasn't from my grandmother's recipe or even my mother-in-law's oyster dressing I learned to love as an adult. New traditions and dishes were introduced. When my last maternal aunt died a few years ago I bemoaned the fact I was now the family matriarch. Now I'm thinking that may not be all bad. Of course, by the time the dinner was done my daughter who hosted the dinner was exhausted so she did let me and my other daughter clean the kitchen. Too bad that matriarch thing didn't carry through the cleaning part of the day.

© 2010, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

Save Texas History Symposium: Discovering Spanish and Mexican Texas

The Texas General Land Office (GLO) is hosting the first Save Texas History Symposium on 6 November at the GLO office in Austin. Three speakers will discuss the history of Spanish and Mexican Texas. The announcement states:

Drs. Frank de la Teja, Light Cummins and Felix Almaraz Jr., will lead attendees through the cultural crossroads of early Texas and how the convergence of three unique cultures came together in Texas. Attendees will also be able to go on VIP tours of the GLO or Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, research the family tree, or survey the Texas Capitol through a hands-on, 19th Century frontier surveying exercise. Attendees also have the option of printing their own map and creating paper from everyday material.

See http://www.glo.state.tx.us/OC/savetxhist/symposium2010.html for more information. Registration is limited. I know many genealogists will be disappointed this event conflicts with the Texas State Genealogical Society (TSGS) Fiftieth Anniversary Conference in Waco. See http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txsgs/TXSGS-New/Pages/Conference.htm for more information on the TSGS conference.

© 2010, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

November Conferences and Seminars in East and Central Texas

There are many good conferences and seminars planned for the coming weeks. Last chance for a genealogy education "fix" before the holiday season.

On November 5 and 6 the Texas State Genealogical Society Conference is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the society. The conference will be held in Waco. The featured speaker on Saturday is Barbara Vines Little, a Certified Genealogist^SM renowned for her knowledge of Virginia research. In addition to speaking about research in Virginia, she will give pointers on locating women and on census research including the non-population census schedules: agricultural, manufacturing, slave, and social data. Teri Flack will be speaking on Texas research on Friday morning. Friday afternoon will be devoted to roundtable discussions and society management topics. See http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txsgs/ for more information.

In addition to the educational sessions, the Association of Professional Genealogists, Lone Star Chapter, offers attendees a free 15-minute consultation. The consultations are offered during breaks so no one misses the great speakers. A professional genealogist will review one specific genealogical question and offer suggestions for research that may provide an answer. See http://lonestarapg.com/roadshow_forms.htm for more information.

One week later on November 12 and 13 the East Texas Genealogical Society is presenting a seminar in Tyler with Certified Genealogist^SM J. Mark Lowe as the featured speaker. He will be speaking on research techniques, researching rural ancestors, and finding manuscripts in Kentucky and Tennessee. Lowe is as well-known for Kentucky and Tennessee research as Little is for Virginia research. See http://www.etgs.org/meetings/etgsmtg11.html for more information.

These speakers are knowledgeable, entertaining, and not to be missed. I hope to see you all there.

© 2010, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved

Texas General Land Office - W.D. Twichell Survey Records

The Texas General Land Office (TXGLO) just announced a new acquisition on H-NET. The introductory paragraph is:

Beginning more than 120 years ago, Willis Day Twichell surveyed tens of millions of acres of public and private lands in West Texas. He laid out more than 40 towns and provided surveying work in 165 of 254 counties in Texas. The lands he surveyed included the boundary between Texas and New Mexico, gave rise to the legendary XIT Ranch, funded the building of the State Capitol, helped build railroads and fund public education in Texas, and were integral to the exploration of oil and gas in West Texas throughout the 20th century. ... read more ...

TXGLO hopes to have the papers processed and available to researchers in the facility early in 2011 and online by early 2012. The correspondence covers work done beyond Texas borders in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona and northern Mexico.

The Texas General Land Office Archives and Records division is one of the best archival facilities you'll ever work with. Knowledgeable and helpful archivists, prompt response times, and access to some of the most interesting records in early Texas history. You may learn much more about your ancestor than what is contained in the land grant files. There are records from the Court of Claims and other government entities investigating land claims to prevent fraudulent claims.

The TXGLO recently redesigned their website at http://www.glo.texas.gov/what-we-do/history-and-archives/index.html. In addition to a great new look, I found some new information since my last visit. The "Our Collections" link takes you to the online search form and to pages explaining the land grant process in Texas in great detail. If you have ancestors who moved to Texas or who fought for Texas and may have received a land grant, don't miss this site. More than two million maps are available online in PDF format.

© 2010, Debbie Parker Wayne, All Rights Reserved