Homestead records, when complete, include the homestead application, the certificate of publication of intention to make a claim, the homestead proof, testimony of two witnesses and the claimant, and the final certificate. Also included, if applicable, are naturalization papers and discharge papers from the Union Army.
The first genealogy guide I bought included the neatest checklist—“Three Hundred Places to Find Your Personal History.” The list was one of those wonderful gifts that keeps on giving. For the first time I realized how many fascinating historical records are out there.
Let’s face it, as long as people have been having babies, they’ve tried to figure out how to avoid having babies. Some societies used contraceptive measures to keep the population under control, and some couples prevented pregnancy to manage the size of their families. Plus, childbirth can be a dangerous business.
I don’t know when I first heard my mother utter the words, “You know, Aunt Vickie gave those boys away,” but it was a phrase I heard repeated throughout my life. The image of two boys, just 4 and 2 years old, being given away would haunt my family for nearly 90 years. It especially haunted Great-aunt Helen, who, at age 7, had seen it happen.
When deCODE, the pioneering Icelandic genetics research and drug discovery firm, gave me the opportunity to try out their new deCODEme test to get a look at my ancestry—I’m always a sucker for that—along with my risks for gene-related disease, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. But my wife, Judi, a believer in letting sleeping dogs lie, wanted me to do just that.
In the rush to homestead the West, there simply wasn’t enough good land and there weren’t enough available women to meet the demand. But Charlie found a way around all that.
My granny, Ida Mae, met Charlie, her future husband, at a barn dance in Indian Territory soon after her family moved there in 1894 from northeast Alabama.
Free Dirt Homesteading, settlement, and the legacy left by America’s $18 dream
THE PUBLIC DOMAIN of the United States is almost boundless. Its unsold acres, exclusive of Alaska, number nearly 1,500 millions, as yet covered only with the primeval forest, or the wild and wanton vegetation of the prairies, “wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.
My Missouri ancestors used a number of creative home remedies. My great-grandmother blew smoke from her corncob pipe into her granddaughter’s ear to cure an earache. Another dear old soul made cough medicine from rock candy, whiskey, and cherry bark.
The case started as cases normally do, with me selecting a rescue prospect. Marilyn Traylor Syx’s submission about an 11-pound family Bible caught my eye immediately:
I came into possession of this Bible when my aunt died in 1990 at age 95.
You’ve done the work—but what will become of it? When no one in the family decides to pick up where you’re leaving off, consider donating it instead.
“The first, best step is to identify the local historical society in the area where the artifacts are from,” says Curt Witcher, manager of the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library.
