My Trails into the Past

Last week, I wrote about Amos Gorrell, Jr. being enumerated on the 1870 agricultural and population schedules. See this post here. The ag schedule indicated he had 25 acres of land. The population schedule did not indicate that he owned real estate. The conclusion from that would be he was renting the land he was living on. However, I have found a land transaction where he purchased about 24 acres of land from James & Virginia Staples in Cooper County, Missouri on 6 Aug 1869 and it was witnessed by W. L. Scott, the Justice of the Peace. [1] This piece of land was located at the Southwest fractional quarter of the Northeast quarter of Section 2, in Township 48, Range 19. I wanted to know where this was and used Randy Majors website where I could map the section, township, and range, and it would appear on a Google map. [2] From RandyMajors.com Because he purchased only a fractional quarter of a quarter, or less than 40 acres, I don't know exactly where i...

#SLIGExperience The second day at the Advanced Land Tools: Maps was fantastic! After learning all about migration routes, we worked on land platting. With protractors and rulers, and the land description, we were able to plat it out. It’s not so hard. Reminded me a lot of high school geometry class (which was my favorite math class). After learning to do it on paper, we went to the Family History Library computer lab and learned how to plat the same land using a program called Deedmapper . It’s a program I definitely want to buy. I walked back to the library, stopping first at the Salt Lake City Visitor’s Center and the gift store there. They have lots of neat stuff – some with “Salt Lake City” written on it, some candy treats, some jewelry, and books. Check it out. After dinner, I visited the Ancestry Pro Genealogists open house and had fun socializing with lots of SLIG participants and Ancestry employees. I even met a member of my local genealogy society I...