Save the Date for the DGS Summer Seminar – July 16, 2022
Gone to Texas: Finding Your Ancestors in Land and Probate with Kelvin Meyers
The Dallas Genealogical Society is pleased to present our Summer Seminar 2022 in person and online Saturday, July 16, 2022. After a challenging two years, we welcome you back to our in-person venue at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in downtown Dallas. And for those who cannot travel to Dallas, we will present the seminar virtually.
We are excited to have Kelvin Meyers speak to us about land, tax, and probate records that are at the core of genealogical research. Kelvin will use examples and case studies highlighting Texas records in a day of learning the importance of these records for researching our ancestors.
Registration is now open, and there is a special rate for DGS members. Thanks to a generous gift from DGS member Shirley Sloat, we offer a special early bird price of $25 to DGS members.
Sessions
Plowing Through the Land Records to Find Your Ancestor – Because Americans were so “land-minded,” over ¾ of all males who lived to maturity, well into the 19th century, owned land. Because this is true, land records exist from the beginning of the first permanent settlements in America—frequently one of the few identifying records from this early period. A quality unique to land records is that the older they are, the more genealogical data to obtain from that record. This lecture will focus on using these records, combined with other records, to identify ancestors.
Tracking the Land Tax Records – For most genealogists, a tax list is merely a substitute for a missing census, but there are many other uses for a tax list. When faced with a burned county or other missing records, learn how to use the Texas tax records to track his land holdings, estimate when he came to the county, and when he left or died. Texas tax records are easily accessed and readily available for research.
Probate: More Than a Will – Most persons in America, who lived to adulthood, left some type of an estate to be administered. Some left wills, some did not; either way, if there was land or large amounts of personal property, this estate had to be disposed of. The probate records can be some of the most fruitful for the genealogist. Wills, distributions, administrations, and inventories are all vital parts of the probate process and are full of genealogical information; these are the things that we will discuss in this lecture.
Texas Records & Repositories – The number of online resources of records grows every day. Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org are two of the largest collections of digitized records. However, city and county archives throughout Texas are digitizing records and compiling indexes as well. Our state archives continue to make records available to us online.
