If you’ve hit one of those brick walls in your family history research, don’t forget about property records. Besides revealing where an ancestor might have lived, a deed might go beyond providing interesting information to actually offering proof of a family relationship or other important facts.
Some time ago I was in the deed room of a local courthouse researching the history of a piece of property for a client. There was a women there researching property records for her family. When she found out what I was doing, she asked, “Why would anyone want to know that?” What she probably didn’t realize is that we were both really doing the same thing. It’s practically impossible to research a property’s history without discovering the people who lived, worked, died, and maybe even were buried upon it. The two are woven together into the fabric of one’s family history.
The following example shows the usefulness of deeds for purposes other than property history. It was apparently common knowledge in a family that Andrew J. Barnett was the son of James C. Barnett. No documentary evidence had been found to confirm this. A deed in the Murray County, Georgia courthouse was located between Andrew J. Barnett and Charnick L. Cox where it is stated, “…Andrew J. Barnett…as one of the heirs and legates of the estate of James C. Barnett.”[1] This shows that Andrew J. was an heir of James C., but was he a son?
The laws of inheritance in Georgia state that if a man dies and his widow survives and there are no children, then the wife is his only heir. However, if there are children, they share the estate with their father’s widow, but with her not receiving less than one third of the estate. It is known that James C.’s widow was alive as of the date of the deed mentioned. If Andrew J. is also stated as an heir, then he must be James C.’s son. Actually, the law states that in this case, the inheritance passes to the child or if deceased, to any children of the deceased child who would then receive the deceased child’s share. Andrew J. Barnett could have been the grandson of James C. Barnett. In this case, James C. was thirty years old when Andrew J. was born. It would have been most unlikely (but not entirely impossible) that James C. could have had a son who then had a son all before James C. turned thirty years old.
Another example shows how property records might be useful in researching family connections in African-American families in the ante-bellum South. Since persons held as slaves were legally considered property, sometimes deed records record transfers. A deed in the Gordon County, Georgia courthouse lists an enslaved girl named Harriet being transferred to Amelia C. Chandler from her father, Abraham Tate.[2] If a family historian is looking for an African-American ancestor named Harriet Tate or Chandler in that time period and area, he/she would be wise to dig into the records of those Tate and Chandler families.
These two examples show that sometimes there are hidden gems to find in property records that might just help break down those brick walls.
[1] Murray County, Georgia, Deeds, H:466, Andrew.J. Barnett to Charnick L. Cox, 24 September 1849; Office of the Clerk of Superior Court, Chatsworth.
[2] Gordon County, Georgia, Deeds, E:10, Amelia C. Chandler from Abraham Tate, 8 January 1861; Office of the Clerk of Superior Court, Calhoun.
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