The Value of Probate Records

For today’s post, I’d like to focus on the value of probate records. The word “probate” refers to the process of distributing a person’s property after they die. Usually people associate this with wills, which certainly can be part of the process but aren’t always. When dealing with Probate, there are a couple of terms that are important to know: Testate: When someone dies and leaves a will....

Southern Military Records

Today, I just wanted to do a quick post to cover a couple basics of Southern United States military records. Now, when the subject of southern military records is raised, I am almost positive that the first thing that pops into your head is the Civil War and the Confederacy, am I right? This is certainly...

Vital and Marriage Records!

As so accurately described by LegacyTree, southern research is often challenging because of a lack of direct evidence to relationships, meaning that there aren’t a lot of things that explicitly state who was whose parent or child. Unfortunately, this quite frequently includes vital records. Vital records...

Using Southern Land Records

In doing research on the Kennerly family in the South, I learned more than ever just how crucial land records can be. In the south, owning land meant just about everything, and people went to great lengths to make sure their land was legally theirs. Because of this, land records are abundant and usually...

Clues in the Census

In doing general United States original research (meaning that you start researching on your own, not just looking at what others have done), you should almost always start with censuses. This is true in the South as well. Censuses provide a great picture of a family’s structure that is traceable through...