Unexpected Land

     I recently found some estate records for my 5x Great-Grandfather, William R Powell of Elbert County, Georgia, on FamilySearch.org. One interesting item is shown above: though William lived in, and owned land in, Elbert County, he also owned land in Muscogee and Cherokee Counties.

     As you can see from this map from 1838, none of these counties are close to each other. Elbert County is in purple, with Cherokee County over 100 miles west. Muscogee County is almost 200 miles south west.

     How did he get this land? My best guess is in return for military service (the War of 1812?) or possibly through inheritance. I'll have to do more research in each area and find out.

Daniel's Service (Hello DAR series)

For my application to the DAR, I'm tracing my lineage to Daniel Boatright/Boatwright. Quite a few other researchers have already proven his service in the Revolutionary War. Thanks to this, my application process will be much easier.

The DAR has Daniel's service description as "WIDOW REC LAND GRANT IN GA 1827." I found a transcript of the recipients of the land draw on the USGenWeb Archive Project. You can see Margaret and Nancy Boatright, Daniel's widow and child. Margaret is listed as "w.R.S.", or Widow of Revolutionary Soldier.

As far as my application process, I received a record copy in the mail on Saturday from the DAR. However, it was not the copy that I had requested. It followed the wrong lineage. I sent the DAR an email and they responded yesterday to say that they would send the correct copy. Hopefully I'll receive that soon. Once I have that, I plan to contact a local DAR chapter to discuss my application.