The GLO Archives in the Times of COVID-19
Like much of the rest of the world, the staff at the Texas General Land Office (GLO) have been affected by the coronavirus. One of the most obvious results of this global pandemic for our staff, and much of the rest of the state, is the Stay Home — Be Safe order from Governor Greg Abbott.
Like our coworkers, we can perform many duties from home, but we are also tasked with managing and preserving a physical archive of 36 million documents, maps, sketches, and drawings. Because access, conservation, digitization, and customer service have been the four main pillars of success in the GLO Archives and Records Program, staff have had to get creative with assisting patrons and on their own current projects. How can the public continue to access GLO records? How can Texans remain engaged with their history while practicing social distancing? What projects are GLO staff working on from home? Let’s take a look!
Accessing GLO Records
Because the GLO Archives was at the forefront of archival digitization that began in 2000, there are presently over 3.5 million individual digital images that are accessible online through the Land Grant Database and Map Store. This wealth of digital material is available to both our external customers and to GLO staff members themselves who might be working on state projects that require the use of our original land grants or maps. This massive digitization project has greatly increased patron access as well as better preserved the original files at the same time since they don’t have to come out of dark storage or be handled as frequently.
The GIS Land and Lease Mapping Viewer is another fantastic resource for online research in the GLO’s records, which allows you to look up the location of an original land grant on a current Texas map layer.
For researchers who may not be familiar with navigating the Land Grant Database or Map Store, GLO Research Staff can still help. They are still guiding researchers to digital resources and providing online consultations through email (archives@glo.texas.gov), for surveyors, genealogists, historians, students, or anyone else with a research question. By emailing this address, we will respond within one business day to help address your question.
For researchers who need access to material that is not online, we encourage you to submit a request for material to archives@glo.texas.gov. Once per week, a staffer collects all order requests and goes into the office, pulls files, makes copies, and places the copies in the mail. In many cases, this is for surveyors or other land or legal professionals whose work continues because there is a land transaction where time is of the essence.
Because of the paramount importance of these records, since they protect title to every square inch of land in Texas, in addition to roving security guards and facility managers being constantly in our building, our staffers visit the archival vaults almost daily to ensure that all HVAC units are running properly and that the original documents and maps are not in danger from poor environmental conditions or other issues like problems from nearby capitol complex construction work.
Engaging the Public, Teachers, and Students
The GLO Archives has an ongoing blog program that features hundreds of historical articles at https://medium.com/@txglo that are derived from the documents and maps found in our archival vaults. Here are some of our favorites:
- Archives 101: Preservation, Conservation, Restoration
- Organizing the Archives: The Land Districts of Texas
- Fresh off the Scanner — The Public School Land and University Lands Bound Volumes
- Fresh off the Scanner — The Nacogdoches Copy Books Bound Volumes
- The Confederate Scrip Program: Land for Texas Veterans
- Land Records: Placing Your Ancestors’ Acreage
- Tejano Genealogy in the Trans-Nueces Region at the Texas General Land Office
- Tejano Genealogy Beyond South Texas at the Texas General Land Office
- The Visita General and the South Texas Porciones
- From the Spanish Collection: Overlapping Sovereignty and Private Property on the East Texas Frontier
- A Work in Progress — the First Draft of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas
- Reliving the Alamo — Susanna Dickinson and the Court of Claims
- Genealogy Spotlight: German Immigration Contracts at the GLO
We also invite you, or your students, to contribute a 500–1000 word essay about Texas history. Please answer the same question that we ask 4th and 7th-grade students in our annual Save Texas History Essay Contest: “What history in your community is worth saving?” The best entries will be shared on our Save Texas History Blog, and across our various social media channels. Please submit your essay to archives@glo.texas.gov by May 1 for consideration.
You are also invited to download the Top Texan Tournament — Home Edition. This tournament will help facilitate the study of notable Texans as you and your students decide who should be crowned the “Top Texan in Texas History.” We provide three facts each about 64 different notable Texans (32 men/32 women) and encourage you and your students to research these individuals to complete the tournament bracket. This is a fun way to learn more about many of the most notable Texans in history.
GLO Archives Staff Working From Home
Some of our projects currently being worked on from home to increase our understanding of these records or improve access include:
- Transcription of Commissioner Reports, 1836–1874. These annual reports provide an inside look at the workings of the early Land Office, including some of the challenges faced by the agency and state during the nineteenth century. Once complete, these transcriptions will be made available as PDFs next to the original manuscript reports in the Land Grant Database.
- Indexing the District Clerk Returns. The District Clerk Returns is a series of almost three hundred files made up of reports of individuals’ claims to land certificates. Details about the collection can be found in its finding aid. Staff have worked from home to create a database for inputting metadata (grantees, counties, dates, etc.). Once the database is complete, PDFs of the collection will be added to the Land Grant Database.
- Quality Control (QC) of Digital Images. Our digitization staff, which scan over 10,000 digital images per month, are able to work from home ensuring that all digital images are in focus and properly cropped, rotated, and de-skewed, and that multi-page PDFs are in proper page order before they are posted on the website. There are around a half-dozen steps taken after each scan of a document before it goes online to ensure it’s properly done the first time, and of high quality and permanence (as opposed to your typical cell phone photo).
- Cataloging Map Features. Several staff members are working to identify named features that appear in our map collection. This will eventually allow for a more comprehensive understanding of historic place names in Texas. Researchers will be able to search for a specific creek, town, mountain, Indian encampment, or other features that are identified in historic maps in our collection.
- Documenting Veteran Loan and GLO Programs. Staff in our Office of Veterans Records continue to assist GLO Veterans Land Board staff and our partner lenders to properly document veteran home, land, and home improvement loans, and they also work with other GLO departments to archive the work of the agency.
- New Research. With such a large and varied collection of documents and maps, there is always something new to discover and write about. Several staff members are working on producing new content to highlight various aspects of the GLO Archives, with a specific focus on our map collection. Additionally, staff are also writing and producing new video scripts and content for This Week in Texas History YouTube features.
In these difficult times, it is best to stay active both mentally and physically. While we can’t help you to stay physically active, we hope that the above-mentioned options will appeal to you mentally, and will help you to possibly trace your family’s roots, ponder the long view of history and the many prior calamities we have all survived, and to stay engaged and in love with Texas history.
