Received at the Library

Essex Genealogist (Aug. 2018) contains the transcript of a very chatty but informative presentation on Land Use Records, by the Register of Deeds for Middlesex North.  I learned from it that several of the counties in Massachusetts do not have their own Registry of Deeds, but rather are covered by the Secretary of State's office.  (The southeastern counties, including Barnstable, were more financially stable and have retained their own Registries.)  I also learned that Registries are based on names, not addresses -- names are what are indexed, and the deeds are just recorded in the order they come in.  And do you know what a "straw" is?  Before 1970 you couldn't transfer property to yourself and someone else, so if you wanted to add for example your new spouse to your deed, you had to go through a third party to avoid transferring the property to yourself.

Essex Genealogist for Nov. 2018 contains a very interesting presentation on "Researching Rural Slavery in Eighteenth-Century Essex County, Massachusetts."  I don't think many of us Yankees are aware of the extent of slave-holding in colonial New England.  This article explores how the author compiled information on two enslaved couples and their children.  There's also an article with extensive commentary on genealogy subscription services (Ancestry etc.)

The lead story in Your genealogy today for Jan./Feb. 2019 explores the role of children's literature in the lives of the author's mother, and her mother and grandmother, through the books they left behind.  Ir made me think about the books I inherited from my mother's cousin (old enough to function as a grandmother to me), the Little Colonel series by Annie Fellows Johnston, set in the Reconstruction-era South -- did anyone else devour those books like I did?  If you are lucky enough to find a printed family history about your ancestors, another article cautions your to carefully evaluate the content and check the sources, not accepting the research at face value just because it is in print.  In "Financing Wars" we learn that the very first Federal taxes began in 1791 with distilled liquor.  The government added other items and used the proceeds finance the War of 1812 and later on, the Civil War; records of these taxes often appear in newspapers.  Other article topics include: slang and slang dictionaries; how to cope with research paralysis; bookplates, book rhymes, and inscriptions; and how to write a successful proposal for a genealogy talk.