Genealogy and Local History Blog

Local History

The New Deal Comes to Grapevine: History of the School the WPA Built

In a past blog we looked at back-to-work initiatives generated during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. Most of the funding of Grapevine’s New Deal projects became available through the Works Progress Administration (WPA). These included a canning factory, a sewing room, a new grammar school building, a renovated high school, a new homemaking education building, and the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) Office. The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided funds for a water project. The canning factory story is covered in the August 2024 edition of the Grapevine Historical Society newsletter On The Vine (”Yes, We Canned!”), so be sure to check it out. Today’s blog will discuss the history of the Grapevine school the WPA helped to build. Grapevine had just incorporated in 1907. In 1908 the town first voted a bond issue of $12,000 and a fifteen-cent maintenance tax for a two-story red brick...

Local History

History of Grapevine Public Library, 1991-2001

Grapevine’s population grew to 31,836 in 1991. Library material holdings grew to 92,797 and annual circulation to 357,855. In February, Mrs. Marie Canning started part-time in Circulation. She eventually became full-time Acquisitions Assistant. In April, Grapevine Public Library’s automation system was upgraded from OCR labels and wands to bar code labels and laser guns. The re-labeling of over sixty thousand library materials and preparation of 30,000 borrower cards was accomplished in sixteen weeks with the help of eighty valued volunteers without closing the library. The Friends of the Library donated a Xerox plain-paper fax/copier, a Magazine Article Summaries (MAS) CD-ROM index to replace InfoTrac, and a plain-paper Minolta RP 605Z microfilm reader/printer from the proceeds of the annual Christmas ornament sale. Skaggs Alpha Beta cash register receipts worth two-hundred seventy-three thousand dollars collected by the public enabled the purchase of a MacIntosh computer and software. Due to community support and...

Genealogy

Revolutionary War Resource Gems You May Not Know About!

Most researchers are well-versed in the use of pension applications, bounty land warrant applications, and compiled service records in documenting Revolutionary War military service. These are the most commonly-sought resources pertaining to this conflict, but some lesser-known records are available that you may not be aware of. Records are also available that pertain to Americans who participated in numerous non-military ways. In this blog we’ll look at some of these resources; be sure to check them out later! Many of the following digital records are in the National Archives catalog and on the free website FamilySearch, both accessible from anywhere. If you don’t already have a free username and password for FamilySearch, you’ll need to create them to view images. War Department Collection of Revolutionary War Records (Record Group (RG) 93) The National Archives (NARA) created an artificial collection of Revolutionary War documents through purchase or copying from various sources,...

Genealogy

Enemy Alien Records of World War I

When the Senate granted President Woodrow Wilson’s request for a declaration of war on April 6, 1917, Wilson requested both citizens and non-naturalized immigrants to remain neutral in thought, word, and deed, and to uphold all laws and support all measures adopted for the safety and security of the US. However, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of Germany and its allies Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria (including American-born women who married German men) were considered alien enemies and were required to demonstrate their loyalty in ways beyond what was required of US citizens and non-enemy aliens. An executive order was issued by President Wilson in November 1917 requiring the registration of German-born men ages fourteen and older who had not been naturalized. Registration occurred at the nearest US District Court. German-born women were required to register starting in April 1918. Wilson’s declaration of war included twelve regulations that...

Genealogy / Local History

Buried Treasure in Underused, Little-known, and Untapped Civil War Resources!

In today’s blog we’re going to explore some underused, little-known, and untapped Civil War resources you can use to significantly enrich your family history. Most researchers are familiar with military pensions and service records, but the war generated many more records that you may not be aware of, and not all of them were official government records. Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies This set of 100 volumes, edited by Janet B. Hewitt, supplements the Official Record of the Union and Confederate Armies (Wilmington, NC: Broadfoot Publishing Co., 1994-2001). The Supplement is divided into four parts (Reports, Records of Events, Correspondence, and Secret Service) and includes official accounts of battles, skirmishes, scouting expeditions, signal maneuvers, narratives of troop movements, correspondence, and intelligence files (Fig. 1). Also included are a few courts-martial, courts of inquiry, and court proceedings. Some of the material is specifically referred to...

Genealogy

“A law which will give some measure of protection”: Genealogy and The Social Security Act of 1935

People throughout all of human history have faced uncertainties brought on by unemployment, illness, disability, death, and old age. These inevitable facets of life are said to be threats to one’s economic security. Family members and relatives have always felt some degree of responsibility to one another, and to the extent that the family had resources to draw upon, this was often a source of economic security, especially for the aged or infirm. Genealogists can benefit by knowing this history and then taking advantage of surviving records of “social insurance” generated by agencies outside of home and family. During the Great Depression, poverty among the elderly grew dramatically. The best estimates are that in 1934 over half of the elderly in America lacked sufficient income to be self-supporting. Despite this, state welfare pensions for the elderly were practically non-existent before 1930. A spurt of pension legislation was passed in the...

Genealogy / Local History

Law and Order (and A Little Disorder) in Early Grapevine

The first law enforcement In Texas, Constable Thomas Alley, was sworn in by Judge John Tumlinson on March 5, 1823. A second constable joined Alley a short time afterward. Three months later, Alley and his colleague stayed to protect the local colonies while ten other men (including Tumlinson) were sent out to protect the range and guard the frontier. These men later formed the Texas Rangers. The Constables and Rangers joined forces and became an active group of roughly two hundred men. When the original Texas constitution was adopted, the constable was the only law enforcement defined by the document. Sam Houston formally separated the two groups. The constable would be elected by the people in each local area, known as precincts. The Texas Rangers became officers of the Republic of Texas. Both groups would be commissioned and report directly to the governor. Today that still holds true. When Tarrant...

Genealogy / Local History

Charles Wall: Grapevine’s Indiana Jones

You may be familiar with the fictional move character Indiana Jones, played by actor Harrison Ford, who became involved in various, sometimes hair-raising adventures around the world. The small community of Grapevine, Texas can claim title to somewhat the same type of individual in the person of Charles “Charlie” Wall, who left home in the Pleasant Run Community about 1876 and returned in the mid-1890s. Few documents exist to provide evidence of Charlie’s travels; some evidence is anecdotal; some sources contradict each other, and some are plain incorrect. In fact, he refused to tell his story for twenty-five years afterward because he was certain that nobody would believe him. Nevertheless, Charlie’s story demonstrates how the evidence we have allows us to understand how an ordinary resident of a small Tarrant County community experienced a wider and wilder world during the late nineteenth century. Charles Wall was born in Madison Co.,...

Genealogy

“Round Up The Unusual Suspects”: Uncommon Sources of Genealogical Information

To paraphrase Captain Renault, played by Claude Rains in the classic 1942 film Casablanca, in today’s blog we’re taking a look at unusual sources as genealogical resources. Generally, these are resources we wouldn’t normally associate with genealogical research. This approach is particularly important for the historical periods before the start of standard sources, but isn’t limited to them. They may be in any form or format and may be found anywhere. What genealogist doesn’t get excited when confronted by an unusual source? He or she wants to extract everything from it that will advance the research. But just as it is with traditional sources, it’s worthwhile to question it and investigate the origin of an unusual source. Why was it created? How credible is it? It might be unusual but it still needs to be believable. What does it tell you about the ancestor? How does it make the family...

Genealogy

Ancestors in the City? Find Them (and More!) in City Directories

City directories were created for salesmen, merchants, and others interested in contacting residents of an area. They’re especially helpful for genealogical research in large cities, where a high percentage of the people were renters, new arrivals, or temporary residents. A directory may be the only source to list an ancestor if he or she was not registered to vote and did not own property. These publications are a gold mine for genealogists. They can tell you much more than simply where a family or an individual lived. Depending on the directory, and whether you follow a string of directories chronologically, you could find: The earliest known “city directory” was printed in New York in 1665. It included 255 names of households, mostly Dutch, and was arranged by the name of the street on which they lived. You can see it in the digitized book  The Memorial History of the City...

Genealogy / Local History

Genealogy and The Great Depression

(Credit: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16629774) Oh, say, don’t you remember, they called me AlIt was Al all the timeSay, don’t you remember, I’m your palBuddy, can you spare a dime? Source: LyricFind – Songwriters: E. Y. Harburg / Jay Gorney – Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? lyrics © Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC US government responses to the Great Depression of the 1930s generated some unique resources for genealogists and family historians. Today we’re going to look into some genealogically valuable records generated as a result of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and see how they can be used to enhance family history research. We need to look for these records for two main reasons. First, the Depression was an all-encompassing event that changed family narratives. Second, how relatives responded to or weathered such a crisis formed an essential aspect of family history....

Genealogy / Local History

Ancestors Fall on Hard Times? Check Out the Poorhouses!

(Wythe Co. poor farm image credit: By Nyttend – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57704286) What is a poorhouse? Simply put, it’s a county- or town-run residence where paupers were supported at public expense. It was known by several names – almshouse/alms house, poorhouse/poor house, poor farm, county farm, county home, and workhouse. And it’s possible that an ancestor or other family member may have spent some time in one. American poorhouse resources are little-known or vastly underutilized. According to Linda Crannell, formerly known as “The Poorhouse Lady, “The poorhouse seems to remain so invisible to us today. This is despite the fact that the poorhouse was probably one of the most extensively publicly document institutions in 19th century America.” These institutions have not been places that genealogists would normally think to look for when dealing with “disappeared” ancestors. This blog will demonstrate the value of poorhouse research, availability of poorhouse...