Eva Holmes, cg® gave a wonderful webinar last week, a BCG-sponsored webinar at Family Tree Webinars, called “Social Context and the Kinship Determination Project (KDP).” She discussed how social context helps researchers understand our ancestors’ actions, the records they created, and their place in historical and social lives.
As I listened, I thought about the book I had recently read,
The Farmers’ Frontier 1865-1900 by Gilbert C. Fite.[1]
I found this book browsing a used bookstore in the social sciences section.
That is where we can locate good sources for understanding historical and
social context.
This book describes the history of migration in the American lands west of the Mississippi River. Many of us have farmers who migrated to the West. Have you wondered why? Have you wondered what they found when they got there? Have you wondered how well they fared? Do you understand the process for getting land from the Federal government? From the railroad? From another land owner? How was farming different from western Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, to Colorado, Idaho, Utah, or New Mexico?
I have ancestors who settled in Minnesota and Dakota Territory on homestead land, in Iowa on land purchased from the railroad, and in Arizona Territory on land bought from the federal government. These are distinctly different places with different farming practices. I was excited when I saw that the author divided the book into regional areas. The author is also an academic, so the footnotes are robust. These point me to even more sources.
One chapter focuses on land and immigration policies in Minnesota, Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, outlining the processes that immigrants and migrants had to go through to acquire land. Other chapters focus on the crops raised on the prairie, weather and pests, northern and central plains, with chapters about settling in the desert, the Rocky Mountains, and California.
I was especially interested in Chapter 6, “The Great Dakota Boom of 1878-87.” I have always wondered why my Gleeson family left Ontario, Canada, to come to Davison County in present-day South Dakota. From the footnotes, I learned about another helpful newspaper, Dakota Farmer.
Chapter 10, “Rocky Mountain Farming Frontier,” introduces me to the problems of settling areas that need irrigation. My 3x-great-grandfather, George W. Lancaster, lasted only a few years there in Maricopa County. I want to research the irrigation systems on the Gila River. George’s land records describe that he helped dig ditches.
The author utilized many of the resources we used in genealogy to help explain the circumstances and problems farmers may have faced in the various agricultural areas. He used census data, taxes, state and federal law, governmental publications and studies, newspaper articles, and county histories. We can utilize these same sources to explain our ancestors’ stories in their time and place.
Check out Eva’s webinar. Try locating non-genealogical sources to learn more about the place your ancestors settled in. Dig deeper to learn why they moved there and how they might have fared.
#WebinarWednesday
This is a new series where I further
investigate a topic after attending a webinar. This way, I am applying what I
learned.
[1] Gilbert
C. Fite, The Farmers’ Frontier 1865-1900 (Norman, Okla.: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1966). My edition was 1986.
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