Orange County Genealogical Society (Virtual)

Larry will be providing two virtual presentations to the OCGS during their regular monthly meeting. The two topics are: “Tying History to Your Research” and “The Tax Man Cometh.”

For more information to to join us at this meeting, please visit their website at https://www.occgs.com/ or their FaceBook page at https://www.facebook.com/OCCgenealogy

Tying History to Your Research: Do you know how to interpret your findings on an ancestor in light of history? Are you looking at what was happening in the area, the country, and the world for the time period being researched? How often do we hear that a family emigrated from Ireland in the 1830s due to the potato famine which did not start until 1845? We need to examine history very closely so we can better understand our ancestors and how they lived their lives. We will examine several situations you should be aware of that will aid you in telling their story.

The Tax Man Cometh: Do not overlook the wealth of information found in the tax records. As Daniel Defoe is credited for saying in a book in 1726, “Things as certain as death and taxes…,” we simply cannot avoid them. Up until the early 1900s, people were taxed on their land and other possessions and these can help in the research of your ancestors. We will examine several sets of records from around the U. S. and see what we can learn from them.