Whether used to trace family ancestors or to study the activities and movements of these early Texans, the database should prove a valuable tool for historical research. Never before has so much data about the individual citizens of the Republic of Texas been assembled into a single and widely accessable source.

To achieve maximum benefit from your search, we strongly recommend that you read the background information we have prepared. The Data Sources section describes in some detail the origin of the various records in the database. Only by fully understanding the origin of this data, and the purpose for which it was first recorded, can one draw accurate conclusions from the database searches. In addition, the Search Guidelines section provides tips that will help make your database searches more focused and productive.

There are now approximately 14,500 records in the Texians database. Considering that a few of the records from multiple sources will sometimes apply to the same person, we estimate that the records represent more than 14,000 different individuals that lived in the Republic of Texas.

Source records for The Texians database are grouped into the categories listed below. More detailed information for each of these sources is available by selecting the desired category. The categories are:

• Land Records (currently includes nearly 14,000 records) Land records not only make up the largest segment of records in the database, they generally include some of the most detailed information about early Texans.
• Voter Records (currently includes just under 1,000 records) Records enumerating individual voters registered in the late 1860s are included if the registrant indicated a residency in Texas during the period of the Republic.

A knowledge and basic understanding of the way the Texian Database is set up is key to making efficient queries into the records it contains. The following should be kept in mind as you conduct your search:

• A query is not sensitive to the case of the input letters (e.g., typing crockett for a query input produces the same result as typing Crockett).
• When submitting a query to the database, a settler's name acts as a filter to help narrow the search. Used properly, they will dramatically aid your search. However, if used incorrectly, a searcher may miss an important record or spend time unnecessarily in an inefficient search. If searching for Stephen F. Austin, for example, entering Austin for the last name and Stephen F. for the first name will return only records with exact matches to those entries. One would miss, however, a record that contains Austin for the last name but only Stephen for the first name. A better search might be to enter only Austin, or even Au, for the last name with no first name. On the other hand, entering only Smith for a last name might return more Smith's than you ever wanted to know. A more efficient inquiry for say, Ashbel Smith, might be to use Smith for the last name with A or As for the first name.
• Remember that in almost all instances the spelling of names in the database are unchanged from those taken from the original source records. All key variations of each name should therefore always be searched.
• To reduce the time it takes to download your response and to avoid unnecessary overload on the server, we have limited the results for each inquiry to twenty records. However, the "Next 20 Records" button at the bottom of each search page returns additional records that meet your search criteria--without having to re-enter the query.

Several lists and other tools useful in the research of Texas history and genealogy have been compiled by Lone Star Junction and provided for your use. They include:

• Reference data for each of the 254 Texas Counties
• Definitions and conversion tables for Distance and Area Measurements used in early Texas land transactions
• Class Designations for land grantees during the Republic of Texas
• Standard two-digit State Postal Codes used as abbreviations in several sections within this website
• Lone Star Junction's estimates of Population Growth in Texas from 1800 through the end of the milennium.

Lone Star Junction gratefully acknowledges the contributions, sponsorship and active participation of the following individuals and organizations:

The single most significant contributor to the information in The Texians database is Gifford White, a native of San Saba in central Texas. After countless weeks and months that turned into years and decades, White has abstracted early records maintained in the General Land Office and at the State Archives. Tens of thousands of these records were then stored on his computer, and some of this data was collected and published in several of White's books, including 1830 Citizens of Texas and the three volume 1840 Citizens of Texas.

White has generously made this data available to form the core of The Texians database. For all his contributions, White is a true friend of Texas. In the relatively short time that I have known him, he has also become an enthusiastic supporter of Lone Star Junction.

Many others have provided guidance and encouragement--over a period of many years--to myself and literally thousands of other researchers digging into Texas' rich history. In particular, I would like to recognize Donaly Brice and other staff at the Texas State Archives, Ralph Elder and the staff at the Center for American History at the University of Texas, and Galen Greaser and others at the Texas Land Office for their many years of support to Texas historians in general.

We hope that you enjoy The Texians database section of Lone Star Junction.

Lyman Hardeman, Editor