NAVIGATING ALONG the RIVER - Research Tips

"Land is always acquired by someone and later (eventually) transferred to someone else!"

It is important to remember this statement when doing genealogical research. It is one of two genealogical basic truths or facts. The other one is that if someone died they were born or, conversely, if someone was born they eventually died. When you are researching and you find a record of land being obtained or being disposed of for someone, then you need to find the other end of land ownership. A will or estate probate might transfer land to a child... a great find, since you can look for how the deceased obtained that property and then how the son disposed of that property. Brick walls can be knocked down when you use this rule to find both ends of land ownership.

Often in our research, we find where the family lived in one county and later were living in another county (sometimes a distance away from the first county). In this case, generally, they disposed of the property in that original county and bought new property in the new county. It is important to find that diposal of the first county's property and then find when they obtained property in the new county. Sometimes, you will discover that they actually did not move, but rather the county boundaries changed and new counties were formed that separated the two counties on the map of more modern times. For example Kentucky once had three counties covering the majority of the state... new counties were formed out of each one making the original county smaller & smaller until it reached its size (and location) of today. It is possible for property to begin in Knox County, Indiana and end up being in about four other counties due to new counties being formed out of older ones. Important note: records concerning that property will be found in the county courthouse of where that property existed at the time of the creation of that record. Thus making it appear that the family moved from county to county, property to property... when in fact they could have lived on the same piece of land and possibly in the same house!

- Composed by JGWest