SNGF -- What Are Your Genealogy Highlights For the Last Month?

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Here is our assignment from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings: 

1)  What genealogy fun have you had this past month?  What is your genealogy research highlight of the past month?  It could be attending or watching a webinar or local genealogy society meeting,  it could be finding a new ancestor, or it could be reading a new genealogy book, or anything else that you have enjoyed.

Here's mine:
This past month, I have been working on a month-long project concerning my 2x-great-grandparents, Peter H. Hutson and his wife, Sarah H. Selman, who married in 1879. Their families lived in Texas in Cherokee, Leon, and Comanche Counties. I have been collecting whatever documents I can find using traditional searches in records and through the catalog, and also using full-text search. Some of Leon and Cherokee Counties’ records are available freely, and others I needed to visit a nearby FamilySearch Center.

The month is now over, and I have not yet written up all that I have learned. It takes a lot of time to transcribe, or even extract all the deeds, court, probate, and tax records. These families are missing in the 1870 and 1880 censuses which is frustrating. However, they appear in the yearly tax records. I don’t know how they were missed by the enumerator.

I did learn that Sarah’s father, Greenlee B. Selman, had enslaved people up to 1864 in Cherokee County. That his wife, Amanda Selman, was the one taxed for the land she owned in Leon County. She was buried in Baylor County in 1880 and he was buried in Leon County in 1888. Peter and Sarah lived in Comanche County and are buried there in Union Cemetery.

I have been writing about this project at my other blog, Mam-ma’s Southern Family. I have one more to write to finish up the month and start a new set of 2x-great-grandparents for the month of February.

The other thing I’m doing is working with Airtable as I work through this project, to see if it is a useful tool. I have a 7-week course I’m taking on using Airtable coming up next month.

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