Texas Living Columnist Lloyd Bockstruck

11:45 AM CDT on Sunday, September 18, 2005

Genealogical research often involves the sharing of information among fellow researchers. One might discover new information in published works in libraries or on Web sites on the Internet.

The rapid exchange of information and the ease of dissemination of data can have far-reaching implications.

If a relative learns that you are interested in the family history, you might be elated to receive the diary that your great-grandmother kept. If her work was created before 1978, the diary is protected by copyright for the life of the author plus 70 years.

Unless your great-grandmother bequeathed the diary to you in her will, the diary belongs to all of her heirs and would be protected by copyright. You would be obligated to obtain permission from all of her heirs before you could publish it.

If you have an obituary of your great-grandmother who died in 1918, you do not need to secure permission to reproduce it. On the other hand, if your grandmother died in 1979, and you want to reproduce her obituary in its entirety, that record would still be under copyright.

The issue of reproducing records becomes more complex when one ventures further from original public records.

Do you have a photocopy or a print from microfilm, or do you have a print from a digitized version online? Such a version may have been enhanced, so one would need to obtain permission from the person or company who did so, even though the original version is in the public domain.

Such situations and many others are covered in Carmack's Guide to Copyright and Contracts: A Primer for Genealogists, Writers, and Researchers, written by Sharon Carmack. Copies are available from Genealogical Publishing Co. for $15.95 plus $4 handling at 3600 Clipper Mill Road, Suite 260, Baltimore, MD 21211 or by calling 1-800-296-6687.

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The fate of the 1890 census is much lamented among family historians. In 1921, 25 percent of the records were lost in a fire and an additional 50 percent were severely water-damaged. In 1933, Congress authorized their disposal.

The names of 6,160 people are all that survive. Fortunately, before the fire, someone had challenged the findings about the number of black farmers. That challenge led to an effort to locate all the black farmers in Delaware in 1900 and 1890.

The Census Bureau statisticians found there were 818 black farmers in 1900. They located 454 of them in the population and agricultural census in 1890. Records of those individuals are reproduced on a new microfilm publication, List of Selected African Americans from the 1890 and 1900 Federal Population Censuses of Delaware and Related Census Publications, which is now available in the Dallas Public Library.

Lloyd Bockstruck supervises the genealogy section of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in Dallas. Address questions to Family Tree, Texas Living section, The Dallas Morning News, P.O. Box 655237, Dallas, TX 75265.

E-mail texasliving@dallasnews.com