Sharing case studies, methodologies, and resource materials. I’m working to add generations to my tree using full documentary evidence confirmed by DNA analysis.
Welcome!
I started this blog because I was frustrated with having to “reinvent the wheel” —- mothers and fathers are attached to trees in ancestry.com with no sources. The familysearch.org One-World Tree is riddled with folks attaching whole generations of people with no sources. Even my family lines within Wiki-Tree are filled with errors and sources that say, “Personal knowledge of Joe-Shmoe”.
And most of the time, once I put in the work and pay for the records, the random mothers and fathers listed end up being correct. So, listen, I’m not pretending that I’m up-ending long-held beliefs about family lines or anything. However, I am providing direct evidence of family relationships or strong circumstantial cases along with DNA correlation to confirm family lines. And yeah, sometimes I break down a brick wall and discover a new grandfather or grandmother and those are fun too. And I provide the documentary evidence for all to read and review.
Please browse around a bit. My posts tend to be quite Florida- and Georgia-heavy because, well, all the branches of my family have been in Florida since the early 1900s and most of them came from Georgia before that. But there are a few things sprinkled in there from Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina as well.
If I run across a really fun resource, I like to share that here as well. My case studies are presented informally and every detail presented is sourced by documentary evidence that I provide directly to you, the reader.
Please follow along to read stories of discovery and heartbreak, to learn tips and tricks, organization and research strategies, and (if you are a cousin) to learn more about the details of our shared family lines.
Recent Posts
Join me in my adventure in family discovery!
A Father for Harriet C Weeks Howard: John Weeks’ Land Entry Case File
I cried when this record was delivered to my inbox. It was just a crazy, emotional rollercoaster of having worked to prove a relationship with indirect evidence and after having all that research and correlation under my belt, I then received a piece of direct evidence which tied together all of my hard work.
In a previous post, I walked you through finding three brothers for Harriet C Howard. In that post, there was a fourth man, John Weeks, who I theorized was likely their father, but could also be their uncle. The arrival of John Weeks’ Land Entry Case file answered the question definitively.
At the time of his original application on July 20, 1843, under the Armed Occupation Act of 1842, John Weeks referred to himself as “John Weeks Jnr”. By the time of his death, he was referred to by others as “John Weeks Senr” and his son is referred to as “John Weeks Jr”. John Weeks who received Permit 883 also had a cousin named John Weeks whom he lived near and interacted with in Columbia County, Florida before he settled in Hillsborough County, but his cousin John Weeks was younger than him, so this would not explain why John Weeks referred to himself as “Jnr” on his application. This should be noted and used to correlate additional evidence when found.
Index of Settlers’ Land Applications in Florida through the Armed Occupation Act of 1842
I have been using the Bureau of Land Management website to look for land patents for my Alabama and Florida settlers almost since the beginning of my genealogical journey. One of the first classes I took described this resource and taught me how to use the site.