I've made an "executive decision" this morning! In social media, Thursday is always called "Throwback Thursday" - whoever came up with that term! People post pictures of themselves or their family from the past. Well, I'm going to make Thursday "Teaching Thursday" on both the SCKY and KYBARREN lists. I've found through the years that many of you are really good at reading census records, marriage records, etc. but are missing things on your family searching because of not knowing a lot of the why's and how's and where's. I've already started the posts on what records are kept in KY and will finish that soon. One thing that researchers look at are these land grant records I've been publishing. But, do you all know what a land grant is? Who qualified for them? What steps had to be taken in order to occupy the land? Those of you have copies of my land grant series to daTE, will find the full explanation in the preface to the books so don't have to take notes. But, for the rest of you, I want to take you step-by-step through the process and what all was involved. I will use as my source the explanation given by Kandi Atkinson, formerly of the KY Secretary of State's Office, Land Department. I will also be calling on Bill Utterback who is on these lists, to toss in any comments he would like - further explanations, clarifications, etc. He is an expert in the land records in Kentucky and teaches classes on it. It is a complicated process and I won't go back to prior Kentucky days except to touch on Virginia, our "father" state. At the end of this series, I might toss out a quiz for you which you can return to me as a Word document. I think a lot of this will make a lot more sense to you. This will not be a repeat of anything I've posted on the KYRESEARCH list although I have talked about how people acquired land in less depth there. I hope you will enjoy this series and learn from it - then, if there is interest, I'll move on to another topic. So - tomorrow is Teaching Thursday and any comments are welcome along the way - either to the list or to me personally. See you tomorrow! Sandi Colonel Sandi Gorin President, South Central KY Historical & Genealogical Society Sandi's website: http://www.gensoup.org/gorin/index.html Sandi's puzzlers: http://www.gensoup.org/gorinpuzzles/index.php --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com