I was in the neighboring county a couple of weeks ago when I realized I had about thirty minutes to kill, so I sped over to the library. Normally I would not have done this, because I didn’t have any genealogy information with me and I would have thought I didn’t have enough time to accomplish anything. But I did have a few “to-do” items in my head based on some recent internet research on my Patterson line, so I decided to give it a shot.
I’m fairly familiar with this library, so I headed straight to the Genealogy Room and to the corner where I thought that land records were shelved. Fortune was with me and I quickly found three books that matched up with what I had in mind.
- 1832 Georgia Gold Lottery – I had seen a reference online that Nancy (Chapman) Patterson was a fortunate drawer in the 1832 Cherokee Land Lottery, but I hadn’t been able to corroborate that. I wanted to see if the library had a book on the 1832 Gold Lottery to see if she drew land in it instead. They did, and while I didn’t find Nancy listed, I did find three of her children, including John, my 4th great-grandfather.
- 1834 and 1838 Georgia Census Records for Lumpkin County – following along a similar theme, I had found some of the Pattersons in Lumpkin County in 1840 and had seen online references that some were there in 1834 and some in 1838. The library did not have the 1834 Georgia census, but they did have a book that included 1827 Taliaferro County, 1838 Lumpkin County, and 1845 Chatham County. A quick look revealed William Patterson (my 4th great-grandfather’s brother) in 1838 in Lumpkin County.
- A Random Book – The same section had a book called Indexes to seven State census reports for counties in Georgia, 1838-1845. That seemed promising so I took a look at the table of contents. It included Forsyth County, 1845. I had already found the above William Patterson in Forsyth County in 1850, but he did not appear there in 1845, so now I know that he moved between 1845 and 1850.
Three records in thirty minutes. Not bad, huh?
Have you had any luck researching in short “found” blocks of time? Tell me about it in the comments.
