Sparks Family Records

This page will be used to add especially land and marriage source records as they are found. 

Land

TEXAS Land Notes

From the Texas Land Office website.

Jan. 22, 2003

 …. There were often problems with surveys during the 1886-1905 land boom. Surveyors sometimes wrote field notes to land they never visited, particularly when locating railroad grants. Demands for speed resulted in carelessness. One method surveyors sometimes used was to tie a rag to a buggy wheel and drive over the boundary lines, counting the revolutions of the wheel it took to arrive at the distance. And their units of measurement could be somewhat informal: "half a day's walk" or "north three cigarettes on a donkey." Most inaccurate surveys were the result of low pay, carelessness, and the threat of danger (Indian attack was still a possibility). Then too, there was so much land available the surveyors didn't feel that more exact surveys were necessary. In rare cases, inaccurate surveys were the result of dishonesty. Whatever the cause, surveys often either overlapped or had vacant areas between them. When the oil boom came in the 20th century, the inaccuracies led to numerous lawsuits and confusion over ownership.

Reference:  www.glo.state.tex.us/.

 A Deed Registration  shows William C. Sparks in Midland County, Texas in a land transaction with J.C. Peoples.  William's son Will had earlier married M. E. Peoples in Midland County, Texas.

Reference:  www.rootsweb.com/~txmidlan/Index3.gif

Marriage

I have received a copy of the marriage record of Joseph C. Nance and Nancy T. Sparks who were married in Hempstead county Arkansas, July 13, 1861.