My Wish Has Come True For An Every Name Index to Deeds at FamilySearch!

United States Wills and Deeds Experimental Search

What have I been wishing for years now? An every name index for deeds! I've been hoping for this for ages, and guess what? FamilySearch made my wish come true with their new OCR search that works as an every name index. How awesome is that?

It actually also is a will index, and brings up other types of records too. 

It's about as accurate as the old newspapers indexed with OCR.  It can be a bit hit and miss because of messy handwriting and fading text. But hey, no system is perfect!

Also if your ancestral area prohibits FamilySearch from making their records available from anywhere you won't be able to see the actual documents, unless you visit the FamilySearch Library or a Family History Center. As you can see below one search result brought up one blank document. 

The second result, brought up by my surname search, did return an actual document. You can click on the transcript to see a transcribed copy of the document or just view the actual image of the original document. 

 

When you do view the original documents pages sometimes your search names are surrounded by red dotted lines, which are helpful. 

Oddly, sometimes, you can't turn the pages once you're on the image. That's a problem if your document is multiple pages. Also, these limited pages, don't have additional information so you can find the microfilm in the catalog. Most pages do, however, allow you to turn the pages and provide information about the source. 

If I don't find what I'm looking for with one search, I brainstorm!  I just tweak the search a bit. I was looking for a deed related to my several times great-grandfather, and at first, I couldn't find it. I then searched using his wife's name instead and it came up! 

I've been researching my family history for over 20 years and still I've found new information using this search. 

For instance I found a brief will for a 3 times great-grandfather. In all these years I've research I missed it somehow? 

One piece of information scared me. I worried I identified the wrong family for my ancestor Nancy Melvin-Hicks. When searching for Nancy Melvin I found a will for James Blades. He  said his sister was Nancy Melvin. I wondered if my Nancy Melvin married before and I was wrong about her parents being John Melvin and Mary Redden. Actually when the will was written my Mary Redden was married to Elijah Hicks. 

I wanted to make sure so I researched this other family. I figured Melvin would have been Nancy's married name. I searched for a Melvin marrying a Blades and only found someone marrying after the will was written. I finally discovered Nancy Melvin was married to William Melvin and it was her second marriage, that's why I couldn't find a Blades/Melvin marriage before.

I've paged through countless deed books in my quest to learn about my ancestors. I don't have all the time in the world to go through hundreds of books from my ancestral areas. That would take forever! It would probably take indexers a lifetime to create every name indexes for all those deed books. That's a massive task!

So, a big thank you to FamilySearch for this innovative OCR search feature. It might not be perfect, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. 

How My Segment Map Has Helped With An Irish Match

A new DNA match popped up at 23andMe with the surname Rattigan. This person lives in Ireland. This could refer back to my Huane/Rhatigan line? The only information I have about the maiden name of a great-great-great grandmother comes from a pension application with information from the 1851 Census. My great-great grandmother and her brother applied for pensions. The applications states the maiden name of their mother was Rhatigan. I haven't found any other information to support that. My new DNA match may confirm my great-great-great grandmother was Bridget Rhatigan?

My new Rattigan match shares one 7 cM segment and one 28.46 cM segment. Sharing 2 segments leads me to believe this is a valid match, as does the person's paternal line is from County Mayo where my Rattigans would have lived. Checking Genome Mate Pro segment map I don't have any named segments on the 7 cM chromosome. 

I do have a portion of chromosome 21 identified as coming from my Irish Mullen/Huane line. Unfortunately I only know that a couple matches on that chromosome are of Irish heritage but don't know exactly who our common ancestors are? One lives in Australia. I live in the United States.

 

Using my segment map I noticed the Australian match and the Irish Rattigan match share the exact same segment, along with another person. 

Unfortunately, I'm the only descendant of the Rattigan line who has tested at 23andMe. My aunt, who tested at Family Tree DNA, would be a better person to compare with this match. Fortunately I have the Genome Mate Pro segment map. Looking at the map I notice I do share a segment with my aunt on chromosome 21 where my 23andMe match and Australian match also do.

 

I have that segment on my aunt's chromosome 21 identified as coming from a descendant of Thomas Huvane/Huane. The wife of Thomas Huane was Bridget Rhatigan according to the pension information. 

At this time this match seems to be pointing to the Rattigan/Huane line of County Mayo, Ireland. We have the match stating her paternal line was from Mayo, I have segment map data confirming segment chr 21 is of Irish origin, and my aunt has a confirmed Huvane/Huane match on segment 21. 

Since I have matches who haven't tested at every site, plus most of my matches on my Irish line have no posted trees, DNA segment data is very important. The reason they don't have trees is because most of the church records in the area where our ancestors lived have been destroyed. We need DNA and the segment information to try to piece our family trees together. I've contacted the match at 23andMe, but most matches never reply. Fingers crossed they do.