TV SERIES TEACHES ONE TO BECOME A HISTORY DETECTIVE
(Please be aware this post was written in 2003 and published at that time in the Houston Chronicle (Houston, Texas) newspaper. Some of the news in this post, therefore, may not be current. Current and future posts on this blog may revisit and update news on this and other posts on this blog. If you have questions and/or suggestions, please send Mic a note using the comment page -Don’t forget to use the orange “subscribe” button to receive new posts-Thanks, Mic)
History Detectives is a ten episode PBS series currently airing on Houston’s KUHT-Channel 8. In each episode the hosts are called upon to search out the facts or falsehoods behind local folklore, family legends and interesting objects of three historical mysteries.
In a recent episode a library in Texas City wanted to know if a spyglass in their collection was a gift of the pirate Jean LaFitte; a lithographer in San Antonio wanted to know if his company had actually printed money for the Mexican Revolution; and railroad history enthusiasts in Dallas wanted to know if a structure they used as their headquarters was the original Dallas 1872 train depot.
Once presented a mystery the show’s energetic quartet of hosts set out to discover the reality behind the mystery. The methodology used in the program is much like what an inquisitive genealogist or history hound would do to ferret out the truth. Watching the mystery being solved is an excellent exercise for the experienced and inexperienced researcher.
History Detectives has a website at http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/index.html where one can learn about the program and how to conduct their own historical investigations. The program may be seen on KUHT Channel 8 on Mondays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Wednesdays at 1 a.m. beginning August 18 and ending the week of September 8.
While on the topic of mysteries, tax records are one of the best tools a genealogist can use to solve genealogical problems. They are one of the most under utilized records used by genealogists probably due to a lack of understanding how to use them.
To be frank tax records are boring and one tax year by itself reveals only basic information. Tax records list the name of the current and original owner, adjacent land owners, number of acres, quality of the land and the county, watercourse where the land is located and the amount of tax paid.
It is only after a number of tax years have been researched , compiled and sifted that patterns evolve exposing revealing stories. By using tax records it is common to be able to tell when a man came of age, tell when a man bought or sold property, when a man died, find evidence of inheritance of property and a number of other mysteries a genealogist might wish to solve.
The Genealogical Publishing Company recently republished Ruth Blair’s Some Early Tax Digests of Georgia a book which has been out of print since 1938. The book contains tax lists for ten early Georgia counties covering the time frame 1790 to 1818. Blair chose to publish these records as a substitute census for the missing Georgia censuses of 1790, 1800 and 1810.
The counties enumerated in include: Camden, Chatham, Glynn, Hancock, Lincoln, Montgomery, Pulaski, Richmond, Warren and Wilkes.
Some Early Tax Digests of Georgia may be purchased for $53.50, postpaid, from Genealogical Publishing Company, 1001 North Calvert Street, Baltimore, MD 21202.
SEMINAR IN TEXAS CITY
The Moore Memorial Public Library in cooperation with the Texas City Ancestry Searchers will sponsor an all day genealogical seminar on Saturday September 13 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The seminar will be held at the Charles T. Doyle Convention Center, 2010 5 th Avenue North in Texas City. John Sellers a noted speaker on courthouse research will be the featured speaker. His topics will be researching land records at the courthouse; wills and intestate probate research; researching women; and Louisiana vital, notarial, land and succession records.
Admission to the seminar is $15 and should be mailed to the Moore Memorial Public Library, 1701 9th Avenue North, Texas City, TX 77590. Seating is limited so time is of the essence.
For more information contact Berylyn Bazzoon at the library at 409-643-5977 or by email at bbazzoon@texas-city-tx.org .
Readers who live in or near Texas City are invited to visit the growing genealogical collection in the Texas Room of the Moore Memorial Public Library. The collection includes books, census indexes, microfilm census records, and birth (1903-1976) and death (1903-1995) record indexes for the State of Texas. The collection emphasizes records pertaining to the southeastern section of the United States. Assistance and lineage forms are provided for first-time users.
