Samford University IGHR Day 2

Today's topics were Court Records taught by Christine Rose and Military Records taught by Lloyd Bockstruck. All the sessions were very well done, interesting and useful.

In the court record section, we learned about the different types of courts and the different types of records available in each. We learned many definitions and terms used in court research. A few of these were:
primogeniture - if the disposition of land was not specified it went to the eldest son;
Rhode Island was an exception to primogentiure between 1713 and 1723;
entail - a way to control property forever - 4 states still have remnants of entail;
the difference between filing and recording in a courthouse;
indenture - refers to paper that's indented - think of jagged cuts, with the top and bottom holding the same information and you can fit the two pieces together to prove they're from the same document;
a dead poll as opposed to an indenture;
difference between land grants and bounty land;
the military benefits of a bounty, and what a "donation" is;
first census to show military service was the 1840 for Revolutionary War Soldiers;
in 1775 there were 26 colonies of Great Britain in this country;
the loss of records and what the continental congress tried to do about it;
records provided by the son of Pickering;
the difference between a tory and a loyalist;
where to find records associated with each military conflict;
knowing when pensions started for Revolutionary War, Civil War and War of 1812;
in the indexed pension records, if there's an X.C. at the bottom of the index card, the record is still at the branch office and not in Washington.

Tonight we attended a very interesting talk by Ruth Hagar of St Louis on the search for Harriet, widow of Dred Scott. It had generally been accepted that Harriet died soon after Dred Scott died. Ruth seems to have proven that Harriet lived until 1876 and then traced the two daughters of Dred and Harriet. It was an interesting research journey.

I forgot to mention the lecture from last night: Tips for Improving Your Genealogical Lecturing Skills, taught by Paul Milner. It covered delivery, gestures, expression, posture etc.