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I spent part of the afternoon at the local county courthouse. I never thought I'd say this, but I adore the local county courthouse.

The information they have is staggering. I went up there for one item. Decided to ask about 2 more before I arrived. Found one of the two more. Poor little Infant Birdsell didn't even rate a death record, only a burial record. Sigh.

Just to humor myself I asked what they had on the chunk of property great, great grandpa and great, great grandma homesteaded. Well, mercy me. They don't have the homestead paperwork, other than the final one where the government said the land was his. However, they have a record of what happened with that chunk of land from that date forward. Mercy.

To say that all 160 acres is back as one chunk of land and under the ownership of some of William and Mariah's descendants is amazing at the least. I knew it took a lot of work and money to make it happen. I really didn't realize it took that much work.

When you see it on paper, all of a sudden it appears as if getting it back as one section of land would be impossible. Without looking at more records, which would make my head explode at this time, I'm still not sure if it was divided upon William's death or Mariah's death. When it was divided it was divided seven ways. Some of those seven ways were then divided even into smaller chunks over the years.

Some of the land was foreclosed on. Some of the land was traded for an equal amount in a different area of the property.

What did I learn? Who sold their share first. Kind of interesting when you see their descendants and their proprietary nature towards that chunk of land today. Meow.

How long did William have the land before he took out a mortgage on it? Or if he ever did. Hint: he did.

How long did it take to get the 160 acres back as one 160 acre parcel? When was the last payment made on the land?

So who did sell out first? According to the records I obtained today, Nancy E Birdsell Mann, William and Mariah's youngest daughter.

How long did William have the deed to his 160 acres before he got his first mortgage on his homestead? Three days.

Assuming that the land was divided up for the first time at Mariah's death, 100 years. If it was split upon Williams death, then 113 years.

When was the last payment made on any portion of the 160 acres? January of 2012.

Who kept the land within their family the longest? The descendants of Oscar Cooper Birdsell. It's still owned by his descendants. Who worked at retaining the homestead land within the family? For many years it was Viola Birdsell Bowles and her descendants, Oscar Cooper Birdsell and his descendants and Arthur White Birdsell and his descendants. Over time Oscar Cooper Birdsell's son Roscoe and his children owned the majority after buying out Arthur White's share. I believe it was in the 1990s that one of Oscar Cooper Birdsell's great grandsons bought the last portion after the death of the last farming Bowles.

The good news, there's even more information at the local court house. School records. More death records prior to 1911 when the state finally started collecting them. Birth records.

Having seen the books, please be aware, if you don't have a name, or idea of when the birth or death happened, it won't be easy to find. They are not indexed and they are not always entered close to the date of birth or death. They're entered when the person reporting the event happened to report it. I saw one that was entered six months after the date of death.

Getting to know and appreciate your county courthouse will pay off in spades when it comes to helping finding the documentation missing from your files. Once you see the wonderful trail your ancestor left and have copies of that documentation, it's hard for someone to argue with you that your facts are wrong. They can still do so, but it takes away their legs.

Each county courthouse keeps different records. Some are kept there, some are kept at museums, some at libraries. Each county is different. But each county is loaded with treasures waiting for you to discover.

If I listen closely enough, I can hear William and Mariah sighing and saying, "It's about time someone looked there."