31 Days of “Out of the Box” Genealogy Tips – Road Records

July 2018 is completely focused on providing you with genealogy tips that are …..well,….”out of the box”.

Welcome to DAY 26 of the 31 Days of “Out of the Box” Genealogy Tips series! Need to start at the beginning of the series or catch up? Start here.

DAY 26 – Using Road Records

Road records can be a fabulous resource for genealogy researchers. The upkeep of roads and bridges were the responsibility of the community.  Road overseers and road crews  were appointed by the county court, and road crews took care of the road running by their land or close by.

Additionally, check the petitions for a new road made by residents. When the need for a new road was perceived residents petitioned the county to demonstrate the need for the road and its location.

When you find your ancestor listed in a road crew, pay close attention to the other members of that crew. Those individuals were your ancestor’s neighbors. This is a good representation of who lived in the community and could well be family and collateral ancestors.

Road records will be found at the county level and road crews are named in the county court records.

Now It’s Your Turn!

Add road records to your research plan and start exploring!

Check out previous posts in the 31 Days of Out of the Box Genealogy Tips:

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• Day 1 – Volunteer!
• Day 2 – Genealogy Wikis
• Day 3 – Cemetery Research
• Day 4 – Newspaper Society Pages
• Day 5 – Vertical Files
• Day 6 – Religious Periodicals
• Day 7 – Unplug Your Genealogy
• Day 8 – Cultural Periodicals
• Day 9 – Facebook Groups
• Day 10 – DNA Education
• Day 11 – Funeral Records
• Day 12 – Occupational Records
• Day 13 – School Records
•  

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[one-half]

• Day 14 – Civil War Veterans Homes
• Day 15 – War of 1812 Pensions
• Day 16 – Twitter Chats
• Day 17 – Mortality Schedules
• Day 18 – Non-population Schedules
• Day 19 – 1890 Census Fragments
• Day 20 – Tax Records
• Day 21  – Private Collections
• Day 22 – WorldCat
• Day 23 – Merchant Records
• Day 24 – FlickR
• Day 25 – Map Collections

[/one-half]

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