I recently wrote about a ‘chase‘ to locate a newspaper clipping shared on Ancestry in order to identify the source of the clipping. Well, the hints for Eli Bland, one of my 4th great grandfathers, turned up a story that is a transcription of a deed. The deed in question is an 1823 deed from Monroe County, Kentucky.
Not only do I want to locate this record, but I’d like to locate other deeds from this area and time period for my Crawford research. Unfortunately, the FamilySearch catalog does not have any land records for Monroe County in the 1820s. Even my old trusty ‘Handybook’ indicates that land records for Monroe county, Kentucky begin in 1863. Thus, I wanted to learn more about this deed transcription in hopes of locating the original records.
A Google search for “Monroe County Kentucky Deeds James Simmons” turned up several items including some on the FamilySearch site
The FamilySearch links took me to issues of the publication of the South Central Kentucky Historical and Genealogical Society. Unfortunately, a copyright restriction prevents viewing the document.
The Western Kentucky University link surprisingly provided access to the full text of the publication.
While I haven’t located the original deed, this transcription indicates that the deed existed around 1974. Thanks to the Western Kentucky University site, I know that the South Central Kentucky Genealogical Society changed its name in 2016 to Barren County Historical Society.
Thus, I am contacting the following societies to see if they have the early Monroe county deeds.
- Barren County Historical Society on Facebook or possibly at PO Box 157 Glasgow, KY 42142
- South Central Kentucky Cultural Center via email or at 200 West Water Street Glasgow, KY
42141 - Monroe County Historical and Genealogical Society on Facebook or at 200 North Main Street, Suite J., Tompkinsville, KY 42167
If I can’t locate the deeds in the local records, I will expand my search to the Kentucky Historical Society, and the university archives. Wish me luck.