Alabama Territory from David Rumsey Map Collection
Read any instruction how-to book on genealogy…
And you’ll find suggestions, strong suggestions, to create a timeline on your ancestor AND on the places he or she lived. Lucky for those researching Alabama….
William Dollarhide, well-known genealogist, wrote an article on 6/20/13 for GenealogyBlog titled, “A Genealogist’s Historical Timeline of Alabama, 1519-1820“.
For any research in Alabama, the following timeline of events should help any genealogist understand the area with an [stet] historical and genealogical point of view.
Included in the timeline list are some early maps of Alabama.
For example, if you are researching an ancestor who you believe to be in Alabama before 1800, Dollarhide reminds us of some key facts.
1790. The present-day area of Alabama and Mississippi was part of Georgia, part of the disputed area, and part of Spanish West Florida at the time of the 1790 federal census. Although there were American settlements near Natchez and Mobile, no federal census was taken there.
And later in the list that…
1817. Alabama Territory was created on March 3rd, taken from Mississippi Territory, with nearly the same boundaries as the current state bounds.
But between 1790 and 1817, there was quite a bit of activity with Alabama “lands”.
Sources:
- William Dollarhide’s post on GenealogyBlog: “A Genealogist’s Historical Timeline of Alabama, 1519-1820“.
- GenealogyBlog – an informative & free blog dedicated to genealogy.
- The large image from which the Alabama Territory picture was cropped, Map of the United States of America. Designed to Illustrate the Geological Memoir o…
