Land Records

Genealogy research usually begins with collecting birth, marriage and death records for ancestors. Using these to find the parents of each ancestor and go back another generation. But after moving back a few generations there usually comes a time when those records aren't available for a certain ancestor - then what? A good genealogist will learn to search for other types of records that can give details of where someone lived, who their neighbors were and who they may have interacted with on a daily basis. Very quickly they will learn that there are hundreds of "other" types of records to find.

Tonight I was reminded of an online resource for some of those "other" records that I haven't used in quite a while - the US Dept. of the Interior - Bureau of Land Management - General Land Office Records. This website includes a database of Land Patents - which recorded the initial transfer of land from the federal government to individual owners and includes a description of the location of the land and the issue date. Since many of my father's ancestors came to Ohio early in its history as a state, I did a quick search to see if I could find any land for them.

Below shows a record I found for David Austin Randall. D.A. Randall was the brother of our 3rd great-grandfather, Delano P. Randall - and also the Reverend who married our 2nd great-grandparents, Henry A. Grubb and Harriet Randall. He was a prominent figure in Columbus, Ohio for most of his life and (most likely) the namesake for my brother, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, all named David Austin.

This shows a description of land in Chillicothe, Ohio sold to David A. Randall of Franklin County, Ohio on September 1, 1857. I don't believe that D.A. Randall ever lived in Chillicothe, but it does give me something further to investigate to see where this land was and what he may have done with it.

The BLM General Land Office Records site has other interesting information, such as the survey plats and even field notes which are a narrative record of how the land was surveyed, including instruments used and the people involved. They have documents dating back to 1810 - so if you have any ancestors that were the first to settle in certain states here in the US check out this site and see what you can find.

Wordless Wednesday - Four Generations

Agnes (Santifort) van der Aa, Cora (van der Aa) Veldkamp, Jeanne (Veldkamp) Manovich, Diane (Manovich) Brogan-Adams

60 Years Ago...

Some pictures of my grandparents on their honeymoon! Happy Anniversary (just a bit late!)

Kent State Yearbook

Last fall we posted a photo that we found of our grandfather's high school yearbook from Ancestry.com. Recently I also found our grandfather's yearbook from Kent State University. He was pictured twice - once for his formal picture and again as part of his fraternity - Kappa Mu Kappa. The pictures are below - the Grubb ears are truly on display in the second one!

Choosing a Last Name

I recently found a website called Tresoar - which is the Frisian Historical and Literary Centre. Since I used genlias to confirm that some of my grandmother's family had come from the Friesland area in the Netherlands - I thought I'd see what this website had to offer. Fortunately the website has an English version so I could do some basic searches without too much trouble.

My most interesting find was the database called "Family names 1811". In 1811 all Friesland residents had to register a last name. Up until that time many people used their father's first name as their last name instead of a family last name. A quick search of the Veldkamp last name showed me my grandmother's great-great-grandfather - Johan Hendrik Veldkamp - declaring "Veldkamp" as his last name in 1811. And the most exciting part was they have an actual scanned image of the book where this was recorded (shown below).



This shows Johan Hendrik Veldkamp - from the city of Kollum - registering his last name as "Veldkamp". It also shows that he has one daughter - Saapke Catharina - who is just three months old. This matches the other records I've found which show that Johan was married on December 23, 1810 and had his first child on September 30, 1811.

I love that the scanned image appears to have his signature at the bottom also - just a little peek into the past.

Wordless Wednesday - Cora Van Der Aa

Wordless Wednesday