ET Genealogical Society meets April 14 in Tyler

East Texas Genealogical Society will meet at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 14, at the Tyler Public Library in the Taylor Auditorium. Michael J. Vaughn will present a program called "'Til Death Do Us Part - Not: Divorce Records as a Source of Genealogical Information."

An often overlooked source of genealogical information is the record accompanying the dissolution of a family through divorce. Although certainly not a phenomenon of the 20th century, divorce was more difficult in the colonial and early statehood periods. Generally speaking each colony and then state went through stages in its divorce process: from no divorce to liberal divorce laws, from legislative divorces to judicial divorces. Each stage in the development of the procedure gave rise to different kinds of records that are found in different research venues. This program is designed not only to help the researcher understand what kind of information can be found in early divorce records, and understand how divorces were granted and where the records of those proceedings may be found.