User talk:Csdennis57

Welcome

Welcome to WeRelate, your virtual genealogical community. We're glad you have joined us. At WeRelate you can easily create ancestor web pages, connect with cousins and other genealogists, and find new information. To get started:

• Take the WeRelate tour to see what you can do
• Watch the "Getting Started" tutorial videos and learn how to make wiki pages for your ancestors
• Explore the Step by step Tutorials, if needed
• Create a User Profile page to tell other people about yourself and the families you are researching
• Read the etiquette page to learn expected behavior on a wiki
• Find other ways to get involved on the community portal
• Ask questions on our Support page

If you need any help, we will be glad to answer your questions. Just go to the Support page, click on the Add Topic link, type your message, then click the Save Page button. Thanks for participating and see you around! --Support 23:34, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

About Old Red River [2 January 2019]

Hi, Susie -- and my apologies for being so long in replying. I've been kind of caught up in family holiday visits and stuff and haven't been on WR for a few weeks. The Red River Project page is at https://www.werelate.org/wiki/Red_River_Project. There's a link to it at the top of my main user page. Is that the one you were trying to get to? If you found a link to the RR page elsewhere that didn't work, please let me know -- I probably just messed one up. By the way, there's a nearly complete bibliography on that page for Red River County, and those titles that cover early history will also be relevant for Bowie, Lamar, Hopkins, and the others.

Regarding your first question: The thing about county records for those counties that were formed from Old Red River County is that their 'pre-formation' records records were (naturally) recorded in Clarksville. Bowie was one of the first new ones, established in 1840, but you will find land records and so on for the part of eastern Red River County that became Bowie recorded in the Clarksville courthouse from 1837, when Red River was formed.

Although, actually, there are also a few records from several years before then, when the northeast corner of Texas (including what is now Bowie) was thought to be part of Arkansas. There's some fascinating history regarding that screwup!

Knowing all this is more useful for counties that weren't established until later (like Titus, formed in 1846). I believe most of the new counties had their early records copied from the originals in the Clarksville courthouse, covering events in what was now their territory. But several of those daughter counties have also had courthouse fires in the past 150 years, and they may or may not have re-copied those early records again. And as I noted on the project page, Red River has NEVER had a courthouse fire, which means they still own some of the very earliest records for that part of the state.

I should add that I retired some years ago and (having remarried) I moved to south Louisiana. So I haven't been to Clarksville in quite some time. When I first started researching up there in the '60s, all my dealings were with the late Mary Hausler, who had been the County Clerk since some time in the 1940s, and she knew EVERYTHING. I'm afraid I know nothing about whoever holds that office now.

--Mike^Talk 12:56, 2 January 2019 (UTC)