BRADFORD-L Archives

From: "Harold Williams" <>
Subject: [BRADFORD-L] NC & TN
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1998 17:06:15 -0500

The following article appeared in The Dallas Morning News.
Should be of interest to all in NC & TN.
--------------------------------------------------
LLOYD
BOCKSTRUCK,ed.
FAMILY TREE
----------
A New Guide
To Ancestors
In Tennessee
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Among the states in the Union, Tennessee figures most prominently
in the ancestry of Texans. In 1796, Tennessee was the 15th state
to enter the Union, but settlers had lived there since Colonial
times.
Tennessee has no 1790, 1800 or 1810 census records, so it is
difficult to find who lived in Tennessee or in what county a
family resided. Because of a complex legal situation, the state
of North Carolina continued to own all of the vacant lands in
Tennessee until 1806, so genealogists must look to an entirely
different jurisdiction to locate the relevant records for
ancestors in Tennessee.
Finding your Tennessee ancestors has become easier with the
release of North Carolina's index to Tennessee land warrants. It
is an alphabetical index containing names of individuals who had
initiated the process to ac- quire lands in what is now
Tennessee. North Carolina issued land warrants to individuals who
had earned land as their bounty by fighting in the Continental
Line during the Revolutionary War. The state also issued land
warrants to individuals who purchased the right to lands in
Tennessee.
This new index includes both classes of landowners. A land
warrant is an intermediate step in the land-granting process. You
can expect to find the names of many individuals in the index who
will never appear in the land grant index. Sometimes a person
sold his warrant to another. Sometimes he died, and the grant was
issued in the name of his heir. Sometimes he abandoned the
property because of prospects of economic despair. The index
gives the name of warrantee, the reel and frame numbers on the
microfilm where the record may be found and the county where the
land lay at the time of the grant. It is contained on microfiche.
Since Tennessee was under the control of North Carolina during
the Revolutionary War, the records of the "over the mountain men"
from east Tennessee who routed the imperial British forces at the
Battle of King's Mountain would be listed as North Carolina
soldiers. The Tar Heel State has 10 rolls of Revolutionary Army
Accounts. Unfortunately, the records have no predictable
arrangement. They are not alphabetical, or by county or
chronological. The series is being transcribed, with nine volumes
finished, but it is far from completion.
Fortunately, the North Carolina Archives has prepared an
every-name microfiche index to the entire set. Many of these
Revolutionary veterans appear in no other record. Because North
Carolina militia records no longer survive, the army accounts are
even more valuable.
The General Levi Casey Chapter of the Daughters of the American
Revolution has presented both of these magnificent sets to the
Genealogy Section of the Dallas Public Library.

The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., is one of the
largest libraries in the world, containing a wealth of
information for genealogical research. Its collections of local
history and genealogical material for the British Isles and
Ireland are superb, second only to those collections relating to
the United States.
Judith P. Reid, the head of the library's Local History and
Genealogy Reading Room, has compiled a guide, Family Ties in
England. Scotland. Wales, & Ireland Sources for Genealogical
Research, to assist researchers who come to the Library of
Congress or other large research libraries with genealogical
holdings. She has a chapter for each of the four locales and has
arranged each one in bibliographical categories. Because of the
close association of these four countries, you should study each
chapter for relevant materials. It includes both book and nonbook
formats and is a welcome addition indeed. It is available for
$5.50 from the Superintendent of Documents, Box 371954,
Pittsburgh, Pa. 152507954. It is stock number 03O-00l-174-1.
Credit card orders are taken at (202) 512-1800 and fax orders at
(202) 512-2250. The handling fee is $3.50.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Lloyd Bockstruck is supervisor of the genealogy section of the J.
Erik Jonsson Central Library. Write Family Tree, Today section,
P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, Texas 75265.

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• [BRADFORD-L] NC & TN by "Harold Williams" <>