Conner, Glen.  ‘Til Freedom Come:  Slaves in Allen County Kentucky, 1815-1865.  Morley MO:  Acclaim Press, 2010.  http://www.acclaimpress.com 

Conner’s book provides detailed charts on the slave population in Allen County KY, with identities of slaves from Barren, Monroe, and Warren counties as well.  States of birth include Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Maryland.  Slaves are listed by year with births and deaths.  Every name is indexed and all names appear in alphabetical sequence in the charts for easy checking.

His book is a model–whatever county your ancestors lived in–look for the records described and indexed here.

Checklist of Sources used: 

__deeds

__wills

__inventories

__inheritance records

__insurance records

__indentured servants lists

__church rolls

__militia records

__Civil War lists

__African-American Civil War Memorial, Washington DC. (Over 185,000 African Americans who fought in the Civil War are listed, including 17 Medal of Honor winners)

The author points out that names of black slaves and names of white slave owners are both needed to trace ancestry back through slavery.  Even then, it is a difficult task requiring diligent and thorough research.  Slave names are omitted from county and local histories.  And slave and black veterans of the Civil War are omitted from reunion photos and veterans lists published in the local newspapers.  Research must include unindexed court and legal records at all levels.  The checklist
of sources used in this volume is only a beginning.

Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene H. Eakle     http://arleneeakle.com

PS  I have written elsewhere about black neighborhoods omitted from atlases and streets where blacks reside omitted from local maps.  Hang in there, if these records affect your genealogy, until the current genealogical community can correct these oversights.  By indexing specific populations in local, state, and national legal records, the job of finding specific families today will become easier.

PPS  And please do not be offended by the profiling of blacks and ethnic peoples you encounter in the historical records.  These statements will clearly separate blacks and whites who share the same names.  Watch for these important statements.

Those going to Kentucky seem to have formed themselves into the Low Dutch Tract Company in 1784 and purchased 12,000 acres of land which they divided up.  For a long time they had troubles with the Indians.  Peter Van Arsdale was scalped on his own clearing.  About 1796, or slightly later, they organized the Six-Mile Run Church (whether named from the Somerset Six-Mile Run church or not has not been ascertained).  The Church was later known as the Pleasureville (Presbyterian) Church.  From this church other churches were organized in Kentucky and Indiana and later in Iowa.  (See article by Rev. B.F. Bedinger in “Christian Observer,” of Louisville, KY, July 18, 1883.)

One of the early Conewago settlers, RulifVoorhees, who married Elizabeth Nevius, and who was born in Bernards township, Somerset County, and afterward became a resident of Harlingen, went from the Conewago settlement to Kentucky, and was the great-grandfather of the late Senator Daniel D. Voorhees, of Indiana.

It would seem possible to follow out the wanderings of many of the Somerset families who went to Conewago and then to Kentucky with more detail, but it would require more investigation into records in York County Pennsylvania and at Pleasureville, KY…

It will be sufficient to add that I had the satisfaction, about ten years ago, to visit the site of the Conewago Low Dutch Church near Gettysburg.  The churchyard was still enclosed, but full of grass and weeds, as was to have been expected.  Scarcely any gravestones were visible; it is to be doubted if many ever existed, although there must have been scores of burials there beside the church, during the life of that community.  A few stones left of the wall of the edifice, grass, trees, the twittering of birds, are all that now remain to tell us of the sermons and worship on that spot for the thirty years of an active church life.

The initial records of the settlement will be in the journals of the Low Dutch Tract Company–not the land records in Kentucky counties.  This is rather common–where an organized group applies for the land and divides up the lots themselves to their own members. Ask specifically for these records in university special collections, Kentucky rooms at local public libraries, and manuscript collections at the State Archives or Kentucky Historical Society.

This migration comes from The Netherlands, through New York, into Somerset County New Jersey, into Conewago, York County Pennsylvania, through Pleasureville, Kentucky, on to Indiana and Iowa.

Centered around the Low Dutch Church, a reformed congregation and fully compatible with the Presbyterian church it later became.  This is a common migration orientation.  And it appears from the description of the churchyard, still enclosed, that the whole congregation could have moved together or following after.

Dutch, as used here, means from the Lowlands, not German Reformed as might be misinterpreted.

Pleasureville spans the Henry/Shelby Counties border in Kentucky.  Its population in 2000 was only 869.  So this is a very small place.  Intermarriage among those Low Dutch families will be extensive–even if the surnames themselves do not seem to reflect their Dutch background.

Although the author of these few paragraphs did not do the research for you, he pointed the way if your Kentucky origins are located here.  The York County Historical Society many years ago abstracted the basic county records, including cemetery readings, for many families in family books.  These are available in typescript form at the historical society and on microfilm through the Family History Library–some 40 volumes of abstracts.  While they did not take the time to put the families together, they prepared easily searched and used stuff for you to do it yourself.

Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Kentucky and Indiana are states where the origins of ancestors can easily be directed incorrectly.  Scots-Irish are Presbyterians.  German Reformed are Presbyterians.  Huguenots are Presbyterians.  And Low Dutch are Presbyterians.  Be sure you check the sources carefully and study the historical background where you research to avoid creating a new identity for your ancestors that they would not relate to or acknowledge.

Today, at the Family History Expo, Arlene was speaking on documenting your common ancestors in Congressional Records. She talked about Peter Force’s “American Archives”, a Documentary History of the early days of the United States. The set is comprised of 6 volumes in the Fourth Series, and 3 volumes in the Fifth Series for a total of 9 volumes. She has access to one of the volumes in physical format and said that because of the computer problem, she hadn’t yet Googled to see if they had been digitized. So I did that while she was talking and found that all 9 volumes are available at http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22Peter%20Force%22 for free, and can be read online or downloaded in a variety of formats (PDF, text, Kindle, etc).

With the computer problem, she won’t be blogging either. I’ll keep you posted if it looks like it will take longer than the end of the month.

Kathryn Bassett, webmaster for our favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle

And I read it, cover to cover.  Wayne was carved from Lincoln County, then Green County (located South of the Green River), then Cumberland County, and finally created in 1800 from Cumberland and Pulaski.  Parts of Wayne were adjusted when Adair County added some territory, Wayne and Pulaski exchanged lands, Clinton and McCreary counties were created.

None of these facts–which many genealogists stop with–describe why Wayne County is significant.  And this neat little unhistory, with its carefully selected accounts, provides a glimpse of that significance.

The author began to write a family history of her Phillips kin and switched to a county history because so many of the families were interrelated.  The first important consideration in studying a rural county in Kentucky:  Are the families who settled there related? Does the history demonstrate those relationships?

The second element: identifying the origins of the settlers, including who traveled with whom and how were they connected?

Third where did the land titles come from?  How did the settlers apply?  What records were generated?  These questions will usually get you started.

All grants to the year 1797, in this area of Kentucky were military awards.  The surveyors had varying skills and the surveys often overlapped–this led to numerous lawsuits later on as the veterans and their families tried to clear property titles.  These circumstances helped to document and preserve the information for genealogical study–

__warrants

__surveys and resurveys

__land grants

__court minutes

__reports of commissioners appointed to view the property lines

__testimony of the chain carriers

__newspaper accounts

__ads placed in papers by local attorneys

__ads announcing sales of bounty warrants

These are just a few of the records you can expect to find to detail the experiences of your ancestors who settled in Wayne County territory before the county was formed.  And the parent counties, today, are many miles away from this area–you might not consider searching Lincoln County for your ancestors who were physically located in present-day Wayne.

Actually you can anticipate the records to look for, when you give some attention to the reasons your ancestors were out there to begin with.

Bounty land records identify:

1. earliest date of residence/arrival and frequently supply other places of residence.
2. names of sponsoring groups or individuals–kinship networks for new immigrants and a variety of clues to places of origin.
3. boundaries of military reserves were set by law.  Virginia awarded bounty lands for French and Indian War service which crossed major rivers and mountain ranges.
4. if heirs claim the lands, they had to submit proof of service as well as document their exact relationship to the veteran.
5. proof of military service includes names of officers, with dates and ranks.  This proof can be used to qualify for lineage society membership.  Caution:  once military warrants could be assigned to others, and used as currency for purchase and exchange–military service may not be proven.
6. experienced fighters were needed to hold the frontier against the Indians.  Remember that foreign governments–France, Spain, Netherlands, and even England–enforced their territorial claims with Indian warriors.
7. these records are the original recordings for land holdings.  ORIGINALS!

After 1797, lands left over or escheated lands not claimed were opened to settlement by headright.

There is some evidence that before Wayne County was formed, Virginia awarded bounty lands for settlement with lists of imports filed in local county courts and submitted as proof for land claims. Watch for these.

Because of record loss when a courthouse burned, bounty records are especially important–claims, supporting documents, testimony taken in special land courts, surveys and resurveys were filed with the state and will be found among the records in the State Land Office–now preserved at the Kentucky State Archives in Frankfort.

Stay tuned for references to printed and online resources to document headrights and bounty lands in Kentucky.  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Watch my bookstore for the posting of an updated book list and new descriptions of books and other items already offered in my store.

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1. The bond.  A performance bond was filed by the groom and a kinsman or guardian of the bride.  This bond assured the court that there was no lawful impediment  to the marriage.
2. If either bride or groom were under age, a consent was required by the court from a parent or guardian.  The bond, consent, and license became loose papers filed by the clerk in the early years.  Later these documents were copied into a Marriage Record Book.   The consent usually included relationship of the signer to the bride or groom.
3. The license was taken to the minister or judge who was to perform the marriage, as a permit that the couple paid their fees and had permission to marry.
4. A marriage certificate was filled out by the officiator and given to the bride.
5. Once the marriage was performed, the officiator was required  by law to register the marriage or file a  return of the event to the county where the marriage.  In rural communities, the clergyman or justice was permitted to send in his returns once or twice a year.  If he moved or died, the marriage may never be returned to the county.
6. 1852-1861, marriages were recorded by the County Assessor  and sent to the State Auditor’s Office.  In 1862, the law was repealed because it put too much work on the Assessor’s Office.
7. 1874-1878, marriages again recorded by the Assessor.  Repealed in 1878, marriages were recorded in a haphazard way until about 191o.
8. Since 1958, marriages are recorded by the state Vital Statistics Office consistently.

No wonder it is so difficult to build a family tree in Kentucky!  Your family tree begins with the marriage of your ancestor (most of our ancestors were married).

Sometimes the discovery comes from DNA that doesn’t match.  Or family groups that do not have a gap where your ancestor would fit, but next door is another, slightly different family where a gap in the right date-span is available.  

Sometimes you meet difference in a new occupation or one that was practiced differently than the normal dictionary description.

Sometimes your ancestor made a new choice of religion that surprises you–because you have focused for so long on another one.

Sometimes you discover a second wife you didn’t know or a first wife with children farmed-out to relatives so the father could work without interruption.  Or, fight in the current war.

Of all the pursuits you could spend your time on, genealogical research prepares you for the unexpected, in ways that other studies do not.

Enjoy the differences, this week especially.  Join other Kentuckians  as they celebrate “the Magic of Differences” Week.  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle.  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Will you share with the readers of this Kentucky blog  some of the differences you discover?   Please email or make a comment.

20,000 to 30,000 people attended–from Tennessee, from Pennsylvania, from Ohio, they came.  They arrived on foot, on horseback, in wagons, and carriages filled with supplies for the six-day event.  From as far away as NC!

In 1804, the Cane Ridge Disciples of Christ was organized.

Let me share a strategy with you that can lead you to the origins of your Kentucky ancestors–follow the minister.  Your ancestors frequently emigrated from Ireland in a group of “saints” on their way to “Zion.” Lead by a clergyman they had already followed.

If your ancestor was…– or you suspect he was–a Presbyterian, check the Fasti of the Irish Presbyterian Church, 1613-1840, compiled by James McConnell.  304 pages, printed in 1936.  See The Genealogists’ Magazine (1936-37) for a short review.

There are many other Fasti for both Ireland and Scotland, as well as those published in America for ministers of the American churches.  Some are contemporary with the time your ancestors emigrated to America, some are compiled from church records by modern scholars like:

Fasti  of seceder ministers ordained or installed in Ireland 1746-1948,
arranged and edited by W D Bailie and L S Kirkpatrick. [Belfast, Northern Ireland] : Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 2005. Includes
short biographical sketches of ministers of various groups which seceded from the Presbyterian Church starting in 1733: Anti-burgher ministers 1747-1818, Burgher ministers 1749-1818, United Synod ministers 1818-1840, Other Seceder ministers 1816-1948.

If you do a key word search in the Family History Library Catalog for Fasti, you can review a major list of these publications. Copies are available on fiche, film, and in print through the Library and its branches.  Use the FHL Catalog as a finding tool for titles, then check your local library environment for copies that you can access close to home in person or on loan.

Google these titles to see if the older ones are already scanned online at books.google.com.  Also run the titles of interest onWorldcat which gives you the nearest library to you where a copy is on deposit.

Look also for ministers’ diaries, journals, memo books, and correspondence–where they might keep a record of persons they baptized or visited or persuaded to attend their own congregations.

It is such an amazement when a book or article provides a list of clergymen who served particular churches.  And I examine their footnotes and lists of sources.  These personal records may not be cited–I find them in library and archive catalogs, first.  Then I try to locate copies or search them when I am in the vicinity of that library or archive.  Do you?

Camp meetings provided contact points for young people seeking a husband or wife–the meetings ran morning, noon, and night.  And the families camped at the meeting grounds or stayed with relatives who lived nearby.  So there was plenty of opportunity for young people to meet.

Have you ever speculated where your ancestors met each other?  In Ohio?  In Pennsylvania?  in Kentucky?  You can see from the places of birth in census entries that family members were there.  What if…?  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Local county histories and heritage books may also list the ministers.  And they are identified in the census–problem:  when you only search online census entries, you need a name.  The census used to be the first place you got the name of a local churchman.  Oh well…progress requires adaptation.  Right?

As I drove the long miles, from flooded Kentucky where I had planned to do research for a week or more, to my home in Tremonton UT, I thought about that article–talking of the impermanence of today’s acid-based paper, and toner ink from cartridges on computer printers which fades in 10-20 years, and early computer discs–called floppies–which can only be read on the machines that generated them, and the laptops of great 20th-century writers like John Updike and Norman Mailer with uncertain storage dates, and the NASA photos of US moon landings stored on magnetic tapes assembled on huge pallets and the enormous size of the machine that had to read them, and on, and on, and on.

It is still a little too early to get a full assessment of water and subsequent mold damage to records that may have been in the paths of the flooding rivers in Kentucky and Tennessee.  The water rose so quickly and almost without warning–Did we lose records for which there are no copies?  No digital scans?  No printed versions?  Still too early to tell.

My husband Alma and I started the Genealogy Library Center, Inc. with the idea that your personal genealogy files could have a permanent home if family members decided they could not preserve them.

Actually, the GLC was begun as much more selfish and narrow idea–the preservation of my own collections of data.  My genealogy,  Alma’s genealogy, my mother’s antique music collections, Alma’s mother’s antique music collections, my 15,000 genealogy books, my 22 file cabinets of historical, social, and genealogical materials–my own stuff!

Then it expanded to files of no longer active of all my 600 genealogy research clients and over 400 consulting clients–also my stuff!

Then it expanded to include the files of clients and their relatives who had no place to put their stuff.  So I began to collect these.

Then it expanded to any collection that needed a home.

NOW, I want to solicit Kentucky genealogy and history books, magazines and periodicals, newspapers, family Bibles and their family data pages, wherever they are currently stored–WHEREVER THESE PRECIOUS RECORDS OF THE PAST ARE IN DANGER OF DESTRUCTION!

Gentle Readers–your Kentucky cannot be traced online alone.  Nor can it be traced in records currently on microfilm–there or in the Family History Library’s Granite-Mountain Storage Vaults alone.

My recent trip–when I couldn’t get to Kentucky, I stopped at the Midwest Genealogy Center, part of the Mid-Continent Public Library in Independence MO.  This new genealogy facility is two-stories filled with ancestors.  I reviewed the Kentucky collection–and as good as it is–you can’t depend on it alone.

I also visited the Dallas Public Library Genealogy Collection on the 8th floor.  Newly re-organized to make searching and finding much more efficient and sure–and as good as it is–you can’t depend on it alone.

An interesting observation–every library has a different collection of Kentucky research materials.  It is the darndest thing!  Also an exciting discovery–by mixing and matching, you can trace a lot of genealogy.

So what is your favorite Kentucky genealogist to do?

Ask for donations–

1. From libraries running out of shelves.
2. From local genealogical societies who are willing to share copies of their quarterlies and the duplicates donated to them.
3. From specific genealogists and historians who have collected stuff over the years–that no one wants anymore in hard copy because “everything is being digitized and posted online.”
4. From map stores who replace their atlases and maps with new imagery and often dump their old-out-of-date maps because they are no longer current.
5. From government agencies who no longer have shelf room for inactive and non-current records they are not required by law to keep.

My Genealogy Library Center, Inc., is a non-profit facility, purchased especially to house such records.  (See my Home Page for a picture and description of collections already received–about to be updated with three times the entries.)

Please consider what Kentucky stuff you are not using and donate those items to the GLC.  You will provide a legacy for years to come.  Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle    http://arleneeakle.com

PS  At the Kansas City Family History EXPO 30-31 July 2010, I will compare KY lineages within my Southern States Curriculm–4 classes on Southern Ancestry?  You could come!

Two or more  times a year you will find me somewhere speaking on these topics.  They are fun to do.  Not only do I get to share some of my choicest research examples,  there are always people in attendance who have an “Ah Ha!” experience during the session.  And head for home determined to capture their hardest-to-find ancestor with these new insights.

Now, to these presentations, I can add details that are finally documented by scholars who study why people of different ages and genders move.  Where they go.  What they do.  And when or if they are likely to return to their origins.  So here goes:

  Disclaimer:  Since I am writing this at the Family History Library without my list of references, you will have to tune in to the next episode for these).

1. Up to 45% of families enumerated in the census have persons living in their households who are not “father-mother-all the kids.”   And these persons are usually related by blood or marriage.  If your family has emigrated from Europe or the British Isles within the last two generations, these persons come from the same  local place of origin or nearby.
2. Young people, who are related by blood or marriage, form the first choice “work force”  regardless of occupation.   Relatives with a business to run seek young family members to build an employee base.  If your family is Scottish, they will only employ kin–they believe they have the capacity to control the honesty, the dependability, the focused commitment of the person hired.  Whether there is salary or just room and board along with training in specific skills–employee is tied to employer.
3. Women of all ages living  in someone else’s household–from as low as age 5 years–are related by blood, or marriage, or close community ties.  These ties remain constant over the lifetime of your ladies.  The census enumerator did not have to report relationship until the 1880 census.  Even then, there are females named in the household you can later  prove had a connection to those living in the family–whether you recognize their surnames as related to begin with or not.
4. Young children, generally under age 12, are related regardless of their names.  Even when you later find formal adoption papers–collateral relationships exist.
5. The average time for a family member to work without returning home, is one to five years.  Have you read the census every ten years, or even every five years where extra state and local censuses were taken, and found a gap?  Your ancestor is there, then gone, then there again, then gone.

These are just a few of the demographic trends that determine whether you put your family together correctly or not . 

Let the work of other professionals help you build a family tree based on the evidence–whatever that evidence is, or was, or whatever…

While it is true that more Kentuckians descend from Virginia than any other place–after all, Kentucky was a Virginia county– 

1. They also descend from North Carolinians–whole wagon-loads left Wilkes county and Burke county and settled in eastern Kentucky.  They went from one set of mountains to another to live.  And you can often name every person in the group because their names have been held in remembrance all these years or published in county histories and genealogical periodicals.
2. And Marylanders–central Kentucky became the home of Roman Catholics who no longer felt safe in Maryland.  These migrations are well-documented too.
3. And Pennsylvanians–who moved easily up the Potomac River drainage valleys.  Even today, You can travel more easily on the Interstate road system through those valleys than any other route into or out of Pennsylvania.  And the people who settled in the lower [Delaware] counties found their way into Pennsylvania first, then Kentucky second.
4. And New Yorkers–actually New York originally claimed some of the choicest parts of Kentucky among its western lands.  And sent its sons (and daughters) out West for new beginnings.   There is also a focused migration from the area of old Genesee county with offers of land exchanges, especially for Irish who sought a new life and new fortune.
5. And Vermonters–genealogists who always considered their pedigree to be pure South are shocked to discover that their origins are Vermont.  Vermont was (and in some ways still is) a difficult state to live in.  Your ancestor could leave the craggy mountains with too little area to farm and a harsh climate both summer and winter for the lush green-covered countryside of the Blue Grass–where horses could swish their tails unattended all year long.

When you analyze your pedigree for places of origin, don’t be mislead by the surnames you find there.  People from many backgrounds can share surnames.  And Americanized surnames can be espcially troublesome–for people from different origins can have the same name.  Or your ancestor could emigrate to America 100 years behind earlier relatives, and share the same naming patterns.  These ancestors present a special challenge.  And beware of genealogical studies that purport the same origins shared by the same names–many not be so!   Your favorite Kentucky genealogist, Arlene Eakle.   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  My next turn to speak on Migration into the Central United States is at the Southern California Jamboree, 11-13 June 2010.  You can join in the fun by registering at Jamboree 2010.  New this year–registration on Thursday evening, 10 June; bloggers and Google Earth mini-courses using your own laptops, free sessions and workshops as well as paid admission–and although not new, ME.