Finding Your Folks

By JUDY FOWLER KILGORE
jkilgore@thecitizennews.

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately on the Georgia-L Rootsweb list about the 1832 Cherokee Land Lottery in Georgia. This was the last parcel of land ceded by the Indians which would go to create and finalize the boundaries of the state of Georgia. It encompassed a huge area in the extreme northwestern corner of the state and was eventually divided into Cass (now Bartow), Cherokee, Cobb, Floyd, Forsyth, Gilmer, Lumpkin, Murray, Paulding and Union counties. But, when the land was drawn by those fortunate enough to win, it was listed simply as being in “Cherokee.”
Georgia was the only state to use the lottery system of land distribution. Before the lottery came into being, land was granted based on “headright” and “bounty” status, that is, people applied for a grant of land based on their Revolutionary War service or their neutrality during that war (bounty), or the number of “heads” in their household (headright). Remember, many of these people were right off the boat and had nothing. Farming was the only thing most of them knew. Land, to them, was a gold mine and their only means of survival.
But, let’s back up. What was the land lottery and why is it important to genealogists?
I’m going to oversimplify this for the newbies because I feel they don’t need a lot of confusing details when they are just starting out.
Simply put, the land lottery was a system of distributing land acquired by the government from the Indians and it was nearly free to those who qualified and drew lucky “tickets.”
The land was first surveyed by the government and divided into numbered districts and land lots. These numbers were sent to the state capitol (which was Milledgeville at that time) along with the names of Georgia citizens who met certain qualifications and who had registered in their respective counties. Commissioners appointed by the governor drew the names and numbers from two separate “drums.” Blanks were used to even out the number of names versus the number of land lots available. So, if there were 200 land lots available and 400 citizens had registered, then 200 blanks were put into the drum. And, yes, some people were not fortunate and drew those blanks.
Those who won land paid only a filing fee of about $20 and the land was theirs ... sometimes huge amounts of it ... and the number of acres varied. This is important to genealogists because it allows us to place our ancestor in a certain place at a certain time (if he claimed his land ... another story).
Records are available at the Georgia Archives in Morrow, which show the names of fortunate drawers and the location of the land they won. Books also are available listing those names, and some information from certain counties may be found online.
There were six lotteries held in Georgia: 1805, 1807, 1820, 1821, 1827 and 1832.
The 1805 lottery distributed land in Baldwin, Wayne and Wilkinson counties.
The 1807 lottery distributed additional land in Baldwin and Wilkinson counties.
The 1820 lottery distributed land in Appling, Early, Gwinnett, Habersham, Hall, Irwin, Rabun and Walton counties.
The 1821 lottery distributed land in Dooly, Fayette, Henry, Houston and Monroe counties.
The 1827 lottery distributed land in Carroll, Coweta, Lee, Muscogee and Troup counties.
The 1832 lottery distributed land in one large “Cherokee” county, later divided as mentioned above. In addition, lots in the Cherokee drawing were listed as either “gold” or “land” and the acreage varied. “Land” lots comprised 160 acres, whereas “gold” lots were only 40 acres.
Remember that other counties may have been later created from these “parent” counties (example: Meriwether was created from Troup; Clayton was created from Fayette and Henry; Campbell was created from Carroll, Coweta, DeKalb and Fayette; and DeKalb itself was created from Fayette, Gwinnett and Henry) and boundaries often “shifted” before they became firm. You really need to study the dates of county creations and boundary changes because your ancestor may have been in one place in one year, and in a totally different county the next year ... and he may never have moved at all!
There is a vast amount of land lottery information online on the Georgia Secretary of State’s site (www.sos.state.ga.us/archives/rs/lotteries.htm) and some county GenWeb sites (and their corresponding county archives sites) have lottery information on those who drew land from that particular county.
Just out of curiosity, I checked the land lot and district where my home is located in Coweta, and I discovered that the land was originally drawn in the 1827 lottery by the orphans of Thomas Dickson. Isn’t that interesting? I found the information in a book purchased at the Coweta Genealogy Library in Grantville which lists the winners of the 1827 lottery and the first two censuses (1830 and 1840) of Coweta.
Also, after checking land records in Meriwether for my Robert Boyd, I discovered that he purchased his first land in Meriwether (originally Troup) from the estate of a John Butler of Elbert County who drew the land in the 1827 lottery. Just more little interesting details to add to the family story.
I’m still looking for your genealogy stories about south metro Atlanta area families. Send them to The Citizen, Drawer 1719, Fayetteville, GA 30214; e-mail jkilgore@thecitizennews.com or jodiek444@aol.com.
Until next week, happy hunting!
(Judy regrets that time does not permit her to do personal research for others.)

 

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