Published October 31, 2023
| 1 Comment | Leave A ReplyMore than a dozen years ago, I had the experience of helping coordinate (and some weeks even teach) an adult Sunday school class at the church I formerly attended.
I clearly recall one unit that I personally taught on the biblical book of Acts, the curriculum for which used some clever phrasing about accounting for the 2,000 years of separation from the events narrated and the present day.
The authors of that curriculum urged the instructors to suggest that the participants look at the happenings through the lens of “the now of then” (how the events appeared to those living them in their time) instead of the “now of now” (given how removed we are from the early Chirstian society.
That was theological, but it’s also become of interest to me genealogically, to avoid looking at past times through our modern-day eyes as if everything’s always been the way we have it now.
To prove the point and show a few family history tips involving land, let’s look at some parts of the real estate process.
Many folks who buy a personal residence take out mortgage loan to buy that property. There were some mortgages historically but many more people paid cash.
One impact of this is that no mortgage company today would allow a real estate transaction to go unrecorded in the courthouse, but in the 18th and 19th centuries in Pennsylvania, a fair number of deeds went unrecorded—or were finally recorded many years later (or recorded as “assignments of deed,” a shorter document in which the full recitation of the property wasn’t given).
For those of us attempting to assemble chains of property ownership, this requires us to use some “Plan B” resources such as mid-1800s property owner maps and the like.
There was also a much different process used when real needed to be valued for an estate. Today, of course, real estate appraisers are a distinct profession and they will come to a house to size it up.
But go back in time, such appraisals were handled much differently. When someone died intestate owning real estate, a sheriff’s jury of 12 members of the community would be assembled to decide the value of the real estate as well as, crucially, whether (for example) a farm of substantial size could be divided (“without spoiling the whole,” in the verbiage of the day) or should be offered to heirs in order of birth.
The sheriff’s jury would often work at an area tavern—sometimes the report the gave to the court even identifies the tavern!—and best of all, they would all sign the report.
This offers another opportunity to gain a signature that can be compared with wills, deeds, and oaths of allegiance to the prove the identity of similarly named persons.
Not a document that you’ll find in the ‘now of now!”
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For Sale
The Best of "Roots & Branches", Fifth Edition published July 2017, edited by Terri J. Bridgwater.
It contains a selection of columns from Beidler’s award-winning newspaper column (currently published in the Altoona Mirror), which is the only syndicated newspaper column on genealogy in Pennsylvania.
The book can be ordered online, or purchased directly from Jim when he speaks at a conference.
Rick Bender
6 months ago
A signature is a little thing in the genealogy world, I suppose, but signatures seem to me to bring a little life to it all. One in particular bugs me: I have my gg-grandfather’s signature but not his son’s signature. And the son served three terms on the Lebanon City Common Council. You’d think it would be easy to find. (Thought I had it once but then realized a clerk signed for all the witnesses.) You’ve offered another venue where it might show up. (Or I might need to dedicate a week in Pennsylvania to comb through every Lebanon municipal document from c1905.)