Contributions to Osborne Origins

Items of interest

• Biographies from old county histories
  The biographies given in old county histories frequently give genealogical information for one or more families related to the person the biography is about. This would include parents, grandparents, children, grandchilden, spouses of the children, etc. Biographies from county histories published after 1923 might still be of interest -- I cannot post a transcript of such biographies, but can post abstracts. I am not interested in anything from the recent spate of county histories -- the biographies posted in these are usually based on research and not the personal knowledge of the person submitting the biography to the publisher.
  
  
• Obituaries Obituaries give names children and siblings of the deceased person and sometimes give their residence or other information. I am mostly interested in obituaries of people born in 1850 or before, but any old obituary is OK.
• Wills
  Wills usually provide names of the children of the deceased individual and sometimes information on grandchildren and marriage information on daughters.
  
  
• Divisions of Land
  Divisions of land are a form of deed where the land in the estate of a deceased person is divided into individual tracts and given to the heirs. Divisions of land provide much of the same information on children and grandchildren that a will does. A division of land is frequently recorded in a deed book with other deeds or is sometimes recorded in a "Will" or other probate book.
  
  
• Sale of land by the heirs
  Frequently, a deceased person's property is sold by the heirs without first being divided among them. In this case there is usually one of two forms of land transfer.
  • Sale of the land by the heirs as a group
    In this case there will be a single deed listing all of the heirs of the deceased.
  • Sale of the land by each heir individually
    In this case there will be a number of deeds. Each heir will sell their "undivided" interest in the land to a third party. The heir's portion of the property is usually given. So for instance, if there were seven children, the deed would say something like "his 1/7th undivided interest in such-and-such tract of land". From the portion given, you can learn how many chidren the deceased had, whether or not the spouse was alive, etc. Sometimes, if you go looking for all of the sales by all of the heirs, you will come up one part "short". In this case, the heirs were selling their land to one of the other heirs who then has 100% interest in the property.
  • Variations of the above
    There are variations of the above were groups of the heirs sell their total interest as a block. In this case all of the members of the group of heirs will be named.
  Whatever form a sale of land by the heirs takes, contribution of all of the deeds involved is greatly appreciated.
  
  
• Death and Marriage certificates
  Contributions of death certificates are welcome. Generally I am interested in the death certificates of individuals born in 1850 or before. This allows me to tie the information on the certificate to 1850 census information. Individual marriage certificates are usually of interest only if the Osborne individual being married was born before 1850. Birth certificates are generally not of interest. Most states started keeping birth certificates after 1900 and many of the people named on the certificates are still alive.
  
  
• Abstracts of census or marriage records
  I am very interested in abstracts of these records. However, the abstracts must be comprehensive for the county and time period involved. That is to say the abstract must include all Osbornes(all spelling variations) that are in the county and not just your own Osborne relatives. If you are interested in contributing census or marriage abstracts please contact me for further information.
  
  
• Other records
  The above is just to give you an idea on the kind of record I am interested in. If you have other kinds of records, please contact me and let me know what you have.

Items that are Not of interest

• Things I already have
  Needless to say, even if the item you have is of the kind listed above, if I by chance I already have the particular item you are offering, it doesn't help me. This is the primary reason that I request that you email me describing what you have before actually sending it.
• IGI, Ancestral File, or other LDS records
  Much of this is either not "original" records, or is subject to copyright and cannot be used.
• GEDCOM, FamilyTreeMaker, or other genealogy database files
  These are not "original" source records. I am trying to compile and document a genealogy of all Osbornes of the greatest accuracy based on original source records. The source records are part of the compilation and are not usually provided by the above.
• Records published after 1923
  Records published after 1923 are subject to copyright and cannot be posted.