52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 9, Courthouse Research in Erath County, Texas

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

My first trip to a county courthouse was in Stephenville, Erath County, Texas. It was at the beginning of my genealogy research experience and I was not very careful about where I obtained information or what was the best method to use.


I had made the trip to Stephenville with my grandmother, Pansy Louise (Lancaster) Johnston, whom I called Mam-ma, in order to visit the places in town where my mother, who had passed away three years before, grew up. We stayed with her brother, R.D. and sister-in-law, Barbara Lancaster, who lived outside of town.

R.D. drove Mam-ma and me all around Stephenville, with me sitting in the back seat. It was not the best place to see where you were going. Looking out the side window was like seeing where you have been. As I look at the photos I took, I didn’t take any of the houses they lived in. I didn’t take many photos at all. This was before digital cameras. I know I had two cameras with me, because I have found both color slides and black and white prints. My color images were mostly of the people we met and the tombstones in the cemeteries we visited. The black and white prints were of framed photos people had and I took shots of them. I did record in my notebook what I took photos of.

Anyway, on the last day of our short visit, Barbara took me down to the courthouse. She knew everyone in town because she had been a reporter for the newspaper. I was allowed to look at record books in the vault of the recorder’s office. I dutifully copied down vital records I found of Loveless, Lancaster, and Welch families.[1] No photo copies. No photos. Just my handwritten notes.


 Later I found that these books had been microfilmed and available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. I was able to get copies of the actual records.

So what do I regret from that road trip taken to Texas in 1995? That I hadn’t
  • taken a lot more photos of everything we saw
  • looked at all of the books in that vault, because many were probably not microfilmed
  • paid more attention to the people we met, and
  • stayed longer so I could have researched on my own[2]

I had been such a rookie at researching, but I did keep notes and I recorded some of R.D. and Mam-ma’s conversations in the car with a cassette recorder. I better get those transcribed soon!

Oh, what I could accomplish today with my twenty plus years of experience, but I would have missed out on meeting the elderly cousins. So I am at least thankful for what I did manage to record on paper and on film of that eventful trip in 1995.



[1] “Trip to Texas, October 1995,” bound notebook recording notes and photos taken, Gorrell Family Archive, privately held by Lisa S. Gorrell, CG, [address for private use], Martinez, CA.
[2] I spent thirty minutes in the public library which was not long enough. I would have also gone to Comanche County to see where my grandfather grew up. We didn’t discuss much of the Johnston family on the trip.

Copyright © 2019 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

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