My Trails into the Past

When I last wrote the post about platting Amos Gorrell’s land using DeedMapper (see link ), I had found the piece he bought and then how he sold the land in three pieces. They fit together nicely. We learned in the Metes and Bounds class how to place a USGS map into DeedMapper and then plat the land onto the map. I first went to the GIS webpage for Beaver County to see if I could figure out how the land might fit on a current map. I knew that a boundary for each of the three pieces was on New Lisbon Road, and that his land straddled South Beaver and Ohio Townships. I used that to orientate the land. I also knew, they were not far from the Ohio border. I showed that portion of the map in the previous post. The next step was to obtain the correct topo map for the area. It turned out that the portion of the west part of Beaver County was on the East Liverpool North Quadrangle that showed Ohio and portions of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. I pulled the 7.5 Minute Series map into D...

This week, I’m taking the Land Platting class at GRIP (Genealogy Research Institute of Pittsburgh) now run by NGS. This course is taught by Jerry Smith, Kimberly Powell, and Sydney Cruice. We have learned lots of skills, platting, placing our plats on topo maps, and solving problems. In my spare time, I have platted the four deeds concerning Amos’ land in Ohio township. The first piece of land was described as follows: On 13 September 1836, Amos purchased 124 acres of land situated in South Beaver and Ohio Townships with a mortgage of $496 from the Famers and Mechanics Bank, land described as: “Beginning at the southwest corner at a post, thence by land of said Bank N89E 159 perches, 5/10 to a post, thence by land of William Shearer, N148 perches to a post, thence by land in the possession of Jacob Todd S80W 165 perches to a white oak grubb, thence by land in possession of same, S1W 116 perches to the place of beginning, containing 124 acres and allowance (being part of a larger ...

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...