Friday, March 15, 2024

Curtis to Carter

 

Spotsylvania Deed Book L, P. 486.

Last month I covered the children of John Carter and his various wives, tracking all but one of them. I am now picking up the case on Francis Carter Curtis, wife of Rice Curtis (3rd). Frances is a sister of William Carter, who married Francis Curtis, a half-sister of Rice Curtis in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. In the indenture above, Rice and Frances, along with Ann, John, Sarah and Elizabeth Curtis, sold 433 acres to William Carter on 18 April 1788.

Rice's father, Rice Curtis 2nd, transferred 350 acres to him in Spotsylvania County on 16 Nov 1761 in exchange for 5 shillings. William Carter was a witness to that land transfer.

According to an entry on Ancestry, in August 1779 Rice Curtis was about to enter Continental service as a soldier. He named his children as beneficiaries: "Nancy, John, Sarah, Elizabeth, Mary, Frances, Margaret, George Bartemeus, and James Curtis."

It appears that Rice and Francis moved from Virginia to Davidson County, Tennessee. A will for Rice Curtis was entered into probate in 1798. The following March, Francis appointed her son George B. Curtis as her representative and power of attorney for land holdings in Spotsylvania County (see below from 19 March 1799).

Spotsylvania Deed Book P. P. 283.

Spotsylvania Deed Book P. P. 284.

Thanks to the wonders of the FamilySearch Labs tool, I was able to locate the will of Rice Carter in Davidson County, Tennessee (from 29 November 1798). He appointed Francis and son George as executors.

Francis died in Davidson County, Tennessee in 1827.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Disposition of land in Orange County, Virginia

 

Orange County, VA Deed Book 22. P. 168.

Picking up on the records involving the children of John Carter, above is an extract from the Orange County Virginia Deed Book 22, dated 2 September 1800. In the land sale above, the heirs of John Carter, including my 6th-great-grandmother Ann Carter Heslop, sold off a plot of land in Orange County to Abner Porter in exchange for 178 pounds 10 shillings.

Orange County, VA Deed Book 22. P. 169.

An interesting part of the indenture is that Ann and her sisters were "examined" apart from their husbands to ensure they had entered into the land sale "freely and voluntarily".

Orange County, VA Deed Book 22. P. 171.

An earlier land sale involving the heirs of John Carter was found in Orange County Deed Book 21 (p. 23). In that transaction, they sold 548 acres in Orange County to Zachary Burnley.

Orange County, VA Deed Book 21. P. 26.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Using AI tools to overcome brickwalls

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Montreal. 6 Nov 2019.

The initial searches using FamilySearch Labs new tool is already proving quite useful, uncovering new-to-me records. Now I need to put together a search plan and make some priorities in an effort to push through brickwalls on some of my ancestors.

I intend to return to my research on the Carter and related families in Northern Virginia. This was a big focus of my February posts and I am hoping the search tool may yield some finds connecting John Carter and Elizabeth Armistead. One area where this could be useful is helping identify the documents to present a fuller picture of the lifetime of John Carter in Spotsylvania and King George Counties in the early-mid 1700s.

I would love to uncover a marriage record for John O'Brien and Bridget Dooner, or find records connecting Bridget back to Ireland. Based on my Dad's AncestryDNA results, it is likely these records will link the family to central Ireland, near Roscommon, Longford and the area around Lough Ree (shaded in blue below).

AncestryDNA.

On the Mexican side of the family, more records covering Sonora need to be available in the search tool before I can make some discoveries on my Campuzano, Vasquez and related branches. If records are added for Chile, I would really love to be able to follow Gabriel Vasquez backward in time and perhaps connect his family to the first arrival in Chile from the Basque region of Spain.

Another branch of the tree to revisit is the family of Samuel Hampton, my 6th-great-grandfather. I can already see several potential results in Sullivan County, Tennessee, where he died in 1841.

Lucinda McIntosh and Asa Putnam Smith, my 4th-great-grandparents on my Dad's side of the tree, are also potential targets for research. Asa's origins in Nova Scotia are a bit of a mystery, but were mentioned in Lucinda's War of 1812 widow's pension application.

I can see I'll be returning to research on Isaac Smith, my 4th-great-grandfather, and his wife Susan Ann Martin.

On my Mom's side of the tree, the parents of my 4th-great-grandfather William Free are unknown to me, perhaps this tool can help with Kentucky records to identify his beginnings. There's work to do on the Mathews-Davis branch, with lines going backward from Kentucky to North Carolina and Mississippi.

For March, I'll concentrate once again on the Carter-Armistead-Kenyon-Heslop corner of tree before exploring some of the other branches I mention above. 

Saturday, March 9, 2024

A deed for John and Bridget

 

Illinois & Michigan Canal.

Thanks again to FamilySearch Labs new search tool, I've stumbled onto a deed for my 3rd-great-grandparents, John and Bridget O'Brien, in La Salle County, Illinois in 1854. For $65, the couple purchased the east half of Lot 5 in Block 61 in La Salle on 27 May 1854. The land had been granted to the trustees of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, as part of the creation of a waterway to link trade up the Mississippi to the Great Lakes. The Canal is currently celebrating its 175th anniversary (see the link above to the I&M Canal website).


FamilySearch. LaSalle, Illinois Deeds. 1854.

The previous year, John and Bridget had purchased the rights to the eastern half of the land from Patrick Dooley (who was also listed in the above deed as owning the western half of the block). This purchase was located based on a misspelling of the O'Brien name (listed as Obrine in the 1853 record).