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More Free Internet Genealogy Sources

Leslie Ryan
Map of US 1834-1836 from Wikimedia

Friends, I have been up to my elbows this week researching a pioneer Texas family. After hours of research I was at that brick wall. I dove back in to Google, my favorite Free Internet Genealogy Source, and found some answers!


The people I was looking for were among the first settlers of Bastrop, Travis, and Williamson Counties, and we wanted to know more about how they got there. Existing trees had them coming from Tennessee with Robertson's Colony, but I couldn't prove it.


I had just about given up on tracing the men, and moved on to the wife's ancestors to clear my head. Entering her maiden name (which we only knew because they thankfully had put it on her headstone in 1865), "McCutcheon + Tennessee + Texas" to Google I found a typewritten document in Google Books. It was published in 1992, 56 pages long, and listed for sale on various sites, or FOR FREE there in Google Books, called "They Faced Tomorrow" by Wanda Evelyn Smith Smith. Even though my surname of interest did not appear in the top of the article, I clicked and read on.


Pioneer woman in blue dress with rifle in front of log cabin with rock chimney

There to my delight, was a previously unknown branch of the family I was researching. Same last name, but different generations. A complete history of the family's migration from North Carolina, to Tennessee, to Missouri, and then to Texas, where they married into the family of my original McCutcheon bride. Surely, they are all related to the same original immigrants, but only more research will tell.


What did I learn? Don't just accept the info in an undocumented tree (repeat, repeat, repeat)! Don't take the wife's family for granted! Even though there is little to no documentation of the women in most states until 1850 (being chattel, you know), you might just find a rabble rouser like this one, who married 3 times, and journeyed across the Wild West to an unsettled and hostile territory to raise a dozen children!


Ancestry products still on sale 1/2 price until 10/21! I think the MyHeritage free DNA upload spooked them! They are also still running a big sale on memberships and DNA kits, so now is a good time to buy to be ready for THE HOLIDAYS!!


How's your tree coming? Need some more ideas? Email me!

Regards,

Leslie Ryan




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