I have completed two hundred and seventeen (217) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. I’m on vacation in Texas. To be safe, I wore a mask in the airport and on the planes, but not anywhere since. Few crowds as we are traveling in sparse North Texas.
Genealogy
Genealogy
Meetings:
Jacqueline and I had a last-minute meeting to confirm
a few things about our trip on Tuesday.
Genealogy
Writing/Research:
I have done no writing except for the two blogs
this week. However, I have done a lot of research. This time, the research was
in person. Wednesday, we visited the Dallas Public Library and I looked at
Dallas County deeds and Dallas County district court indexes. I also read
through several books and took images of pages of interest. The main families I
am interested in are Coor, Lancaster, and Johnston who lived in Erath County;
Johnston and Hutson in Comanche County; and Polly who lived in Montague,
Dallas, and Rockwall Counties. The Lancasters lived in Rockwall County, before
Erath.
Thursday, we spent the morning at the Erath County clerk’s office looking at deed index books. The images of the deeds are online but the index images are difficult to view. I ended up with three pages of deeds to enter on the website when I get home. I also checked the court clerk’s office to view the probate and district court indexes. In the afternoon, we visited Smith Library at Tarleton State University and viewed some tax records and motor vehicle licensing records.
Friday’s research involved visiting Dublin Library where the Erath County Genealogical Society has a nice collection of local materials. They had set out some books for me and I looked at others as well. I found a book about a Baptist church where my great-great-grandfather was an elder, which I never knew. We drove to Comanche County and checked probate and vital records at their courthouse. Then visited five cemeteries where we took photos. These gravesites are on Find a Grave but we wanted our own photos to use as we want.
Saturday, we visited the Comanche County History Museum and I looked at yearbooks and family books and found a thesis on education in the county. Then we drove 120 miles to Nocona to visit the Tales N Trails museum in Montague County since they were not open on Sunday. I didn’t find anything new on the Polly family.
Sunday, we spent time in Jack County looking for cemeteries for Jacqueline. The first one was doable and we found her family right away. However, the second one was at the end of a long gravel road. We had to go through a gate and then discovered the road was a bit flooded. I did not want to take the rental car through the puddles that I couldn’t tell how deep they were. We thought to walk in but discovered the cemetery might be on private property. So we abandoned the idea and continued to Bonham in Fannin County. Tomorrow, we start on another family of hers.
Blog Post Published:
Far from Loveless: William H. & Jo Hazel Loveless Celebrate 50 Years. For 52 Ancestors, I wrote about the newspaper article I found about their 50th anniversary.
SNGF:Make a Descendant’s List of Second Great-Grandparents. We created descendants lists in RootsMagic and counted how many we had.
Genealogy
Volunteer/Work:
I sent out the press release for the Riesinger
Lectures for the Board for the Certification of Genealogists. Our AppGen founders had a meeting on Monday.
Webinars/Courses
Viewed:
I viewed no webinars
this week.
Other:
Texas is big! Our weather the first four days was
rainy and in the evening we had thunder and lightning. The counties we visited
are small and we had trouble finding places to stay and places to eat. We
bought a small cooler to keep ice in and purchased lunch meat, fruit, and nuts
which we snack on when we can’t find a restaurant. Sunday night we lucked out.
We found a nice restaurant in Bonham and had fried catfish. Yum!
I am reading:
- 101 Things You Didn’t Know About World War I: The
People, Battles, and Aftermath of the Great War
by Erik Sass
Photos for this week.
We were amazed by the wildflowers growing along
the highways in Texas. The bluebonnets are done, but there are thick carpets of
orange and yellow. We stopped beside a place off the highway for some pics.
Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great at documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme.
Hope your trip will be very successful and have lots of fun!
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