Jean Russo, Research Notes
2007/08/03: Delivered the descendants chart for JEH. Told E&E that Ed wanted them to focus on the ground rent allocations. Discussed the difficulty of locating properties and following titles. Searched the Archives' library for Howard genealogy references; found a few to be explored further next week.
2007/08/02: Exchange of emails about ground rents. Took the pdf file of Sophia Read's ground rents and compared the location of those ground rents with the distributio of fee simple lots. With one questionable exception, none of the ground rents allocated to Sophia Read was on a fee simple lot distributed to any of the heirs. It appears, therefore, that ground rents were created for properties whose fee simple title to the land had been or would be sold, with John Eager Howard retaining the income-producing ground rent for himself. Did some checking in probate records to look for administration accounts for George and Prudence Howard; found none in Anne Arundel County. Created a family tree maker file for the Howards; printed the John Eager Howard tree for Elizabeth and Erin; very sketchy at this point.
2007/08/01: Emailed Ed about the confusion over ground rent locations.
2007/07/30: Met with Erin and Elizabeth. Confirmed that they had been using the ground rents spreadsheet as the basis for locating all ground rents that were distribution in 1828. Reviewed the need to determine ground rent locations from the information contained in the ground rent allocation: present tenant(s) and original lessee. Emailed Ed to request clarification of priority for E&E -- fee simple titles or ground rent titles.
2007/07/27: Worked through the problems that Elizabeth had identified in her log as she tried to match the real property lots with Bromley and Sanborn images. A number of the problem lots concerned those lots above the Mt. Vernon area that do not appear on any of the Sanborn maps, but are just above the area shown in map 8. I had originally coded them as 8, because I'd placed them on my printout of that map; they had been conceptually renumbered as 0 using an image drawn from the city-wide Sanborn map, but I had failed to correct the spreadsheet to reflect that change. This is an issue with the Bromley map, as well, for a much smaller set of properties. Elizabeth also caught a few incorrect html/block references. I have corrected the spreadsheet, and need to upload it to ECPCLIO now. Other problems may stem from using an outdated version of the spreadsheet -- I will meet with Elizabeth next week to go over all of these. My review also raised a question about the mapping of the ground rent properties. I had been surprised on 7/12 when Elizabeth and Erin reported that they had located all of those properties, and I now fear that they used the spreadsheet as a guide to all ground rent properties, rather than just to those dozen or so that are numbered on the plats of the real property distribution. I hope that I will discover that I am wrong when we discuss it Monday or Tuesday.
2007/07/26: Read Erin's and Elizabeth's work logs to become familiar with the work that they are currently doing and specific problems with locating properties and searching titles. Met briefly with them to see how work was progressing.
2007/07/24: Attended Ground Rents Project meeting that dealt primarily with complications that arise in doing title searches. Showed Erin & Elizabeth the link to Heritage Quest for searching census records and the Guide to Government Records links for probate records.
2007/07/12: Attended Ground Rents Project meeting that dealt mostly with difficulties in getting all pieces of the title search puzzles stored in the same place and readily accessible.
2007/06/22: Email exchange with Elizabeth and Erin to clarify question about location of transcribed material. Used Erin's worklog and editonline text to see what modifications had been made to the workplan.
2007/06/21: Site visit to EC1. Resolved problem with link from worksheets to Bromley Atlas thumbnails. HTML index still not available as a hyperlink. Fixed with Jen's assistance.
2007/06/20: Responded to email from Elizabeth, clarifing status of Mt. Vernon Square lots, ability to correct pages that appear upside down in Chancery Court file, and omission from project of rural property and Federal Hill land. With reference to Erin's index to html images, asked about inclusion in ECPCLIO as a hyperlink.
2007/06/14: Checked in with Erin and Elizabeth upon return from CA. Learned that first priority was now to prepare a standardized worksheet for each of the distributed lots. Obtained sample copy of format. Answered a couple of procedural questions.
2007/06/09: Edited previous transcriptions of content pages within the record of the 1832 distribution (pp.1-63); transcribed remaining non-allocation pages, with the exception of the two summary pages for the distribution; and completed transcription of the first lot allocation for each of the eight heirs. Noted valuation of each lot for inclusion in general commentary about the reallocation of these four blocks.
2007/06/08: Meeting, 11am-1pm,2pm-4:30pm. Transcription of all blank pages within record of 1830 division of Mt. Vernon Square lots. Updated reference page for short form codes, assignment of heirs to interns, identification of initial page of each heir's share of each of the three distributions; this material uploaded as
master reference. Initiation of journal.
2007/06/07: Transcription of first Mt. Vernon Square lot assigned to each of the eight heirs.
2007/06/06: Meeting, 3pm-3:45pm with Kim and Joyce to plan initial work for summer interns. Preparation of spreadsheet for Mt. Vernon Square properties; sent to Kim and Joyce (pp.1-63 of Chancery Court case).
2007/06/05: Added Bromley html #s to 1828 lot distribution spreadsheet. Identified all ground rents that appear on the plats showing the 1828 lot distributions.
2007/06/04: Finished transcriptions of first lot for remaining 2 Howard heirs (1828 distribution). Updated spreadsheet; sent as Excel file to Kim.
2007/06/03: Transcribed first lot in 1828 distribution for the first six Howard heirs.
2007/05/22-06/02: For the 1828 distribution of lots, prepared a spreadsheet for each lot with the north, east, south, west boundaries as shown on the plat in the Chancery Court records. Located each lot on the appropriate page of the 1879/1880 Sanborn Insurance Map (recording the sheet number on the spreadsheet)and then identified the corresponding 1906 Bromley Atlas block # (recording this number on the spreadsheet as well; on 06/05, added the Bromley html # to make it easier to refer back to the atlas for a specific lot).
