Where should I look next regarding this land reference?

+3 votes
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I am trying to interpret this will for Priscilla Debruler and I'm particularly interested in what she means by "my tract of land secured to me by writings in the clerk's office of the Harrison County Court..." and "... all the household furniture that was named in the morgige..."

Am I right to think her father mortgaged his land but somehow exempted a portion for her? Full disclosure: I'm mostly an on-line researcher - if I go to the court house, do I want to look at deed books to find what she's referencing? Other suggestions?

in Genealogy Help by Mel Bishop G2G6 Mach 7 (70.9k points)

1 Answer

+6 votes
 
Best answer

Is this the Priscilla you're workin* on? https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Debruler-1

I would start with Harrison County land deeds.  They may include mortgages. I don't  know. They're digitized but not digitally indexed. Ie you can't use the FS search engine to find them by name.

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/431273?availability=Family%20History%20Library

The process is tedious but not impossible. 

Note on that page above that there is a set of films that are indexes  and another set that are the deeds themselves. 

You have to first find the name(s) you're looking for in the index. Each letter is itself indexed.

Here's one page where some Debrulers shows up in the index to the index:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS42-L98K-K?i=598&cat=431273

There may be more. 

Note the page numbers. There's a Jacob on p 16. Those refer to the index.  So you have to work your way through the D section of the index to find the page in that section of the film that has the name you're seeking. Keep in mind that those page numbers do not refer to image numbers. 

Then when you find the index page you're seeking, it will give you the vol and page of the actual deed record. Then you go back to www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/431273?availability=Family%20History%20Library and look for the volume. Open it and work your way to the page number that contains the actual deed text.

keep in mind that the property may have been mortgaged under a name other than Debruler but I'd start there. 

Good luck!

by Jillaine Smith G2G6 Pilot (910k points)
selected by Maggie N.
Jillaine, you're awesome. I had no idea FS had those records digitized - I haven't used the site in a long time til recently. Super helpful!!

But no, the profile you mentioned isn't what I was working on - I was actually working on something else all together and got distracted. I think that profile probably belongs to this woman's niece - and actually Jacob Debruler might be the exact record I need to clarify the situation. Thanks again!
Postscript: Familysearch.org is a good place to go to see what records are available-- digital or otherwise. You can look up a particular location (use the place field):

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog

I entered Harrison County, Kentucky and got to this page:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/results?count=20&placeId=195399&query=%2Bplace%3A%22United%20States%2C%20Kentucky%2C%20Harrison%22

Look at all the categories... then double click your way in...

And come back if you haven't been there in awhile because they're digitizing more and more records.
(Thanks, Maggie N...)
Fantastic resource - thanks again for the links and the tips Jillaine!

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