Contributions to Osborne Origins
Your contributions of source records to be posted at the Osborne
Origins website are welcome. Contributions by email or by paper
copy are good. I will gladly reimburse copy and postage expense.
I am not looking for GEDCOMs or compiled genealogies. I am looking
for source records. Here is a sample of the kinds of records I am
looking for. Please contact me before sending records in order to give me
a general idea of what you will be sending. Thanks.
Items of interest
- Biographies from old county histories
The biographies given in old county histories frequently give
genealogical information for one or more families related to the
person the biography is about. This would include parents,
grandparents, children, grandchilden, spouses of the children,
etc. Biographies from county histories published after 1923 might
still be of interest -- I cannot post a transcript of such biographies,
but can post abstracts. I am not interested in anything from
the recent spate of county histories -- the biographies posted in
these are usually based on research and not the personal knowledge
of the person submitting the biography to the publisher.
- Obituaries
Obituaries give names children and siblings of the deceased person
and sometimes give their residence or other information. I am mostly
interested in obituaries of people born in 1850 or before, but any
old obituary is OK.
- Wills
Wills usually provide names of the children of the deceased
individual and sometimes information on grandchildren and
marriage information on daughters.
- Divisions of Land
Divisions of land are a form of deed where the
land in the estate of a deceased person is divided into individual
tracts and given to the heirs. Divisions of land provide much of
the same information on children and grandchildren that a will
does. A division of land is frequently recorded in a deed book
with other deeds or is sometimes recorded in a "Will" or other
probate book.
- Sale of land by the heirs
Frequently, a deceased person's
property is sold by the heirs without first being divided among
them. In this case there is usually one of two forms of land
transfer.
- Sale of the land by the heirs as a group
In this case there will be a single deed listing all of the heirs
of the deceased.
- Sale of the land by each heir individually
In this case there will be a number of deeds. Each heir will sell
their "undivided" interest in the land to a third party. The heir's
portion of the property is usually given. So for instance, if there
were seven children, the deed would say something like "his 1/7th
undivided interest in such-and-such tract of land". From the portion
given, you can learn how many chidren the deceased had, whether or
not the spouse was alive, etc. Sometimes, if you go looking for
all of the sales by all of the heirs, you will come up one part
"short". In this case, the heirs were selling their land to one
of the other heirs who then has 100% interest in the property.
- Variations of the above
There are variations of the above were groups of the heirs sell
their total interest as a block. In this case all of the members
of the group of heirs will be named.
Whatever form a sale of land by the heirs takes, contribution of all of
the deeds involved is greatly appreciated.
- Death and Marriage certificates
Contributions of death certificates are welcome. Generally I am interested
in the death certificates of individuals born in 1850 or before. This
allows me to tie the information on the certificate to 1850 census
information. Individual marriage certificates are usually of interest only
if the Osborne individual being married was born before 1850. Birth
certificates are generally not of interest. Most states started keeping
birth certificates after 1900 and many of the people named on the
certificates are still alive.
- Abstracts of census or marriage records
I am very interested in abstracts of these records. However, the abstracts
must be comprehensive for the county and time period involved. That is to
say the abstract must include all Osbornes(all spelling variations) that
are in the county and not just your own Osborne relatives. If you are
interested in contributing census or marriage abstracts please contact me
for further information.
- Other records
The above is just to give you an idea on the kind of record I am interested
in. If you have other kinds of records, please contact me and let me know
what you have.
Items that are Not of interest
The following is a list of the kinds of things that I am not
interested in:
- Things I already have
Needless to say, even if the item you have is of the kind listed
above, if I by chance I already have the particular item you are
offering, it doesn't help me. This is the primary reason that I
request that you email me describing what you have before actually
sending it.
- IGI, Ancestral File, or other LDS records
Much of this is either not "original" records, or is subject to
copyright and cannot be used.
- GEDCOM, FamilyTreeMaker, or other genealogy database files
These are not "original" source records. I am trying to compile
and document a genealogy of all Osbornes of the greatest accuracy
based on original source records. The source records are part of
the compilation and are not usually provided by the above.
- Records published after 1923
Records published after 1923 are subject to copyright and cannot be
posted.