While it’s always fun to make a genealogical research trip to a courthouse and search through old records, remember that the most fragile genealogical source available is someone’s mind.
If, as the saying goes “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise,” the courthouse will still be around in a week. Great aunt Myrtle might not. The human mind can be extremely fragile and is a repository that often can’t be replicated elsewhere.
Don’t neglect it.
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While Grandma and G Aunt Myrtle might not be around, but it depends on how important you want correct information in you family History or gathering family stories. Remember family fables will continue to the next Generation (although they’ll probably be more exciting) and you can still get them later via mail or call. Yes, Talk to the elders at the Family Gatherings and with that information use them only as clues but don’t accept them as truth. Any information I acquired from my mother, grandmother or elders seemed to be their version from the past and it was grossly exaggerated. When I got to a Court House I found a whole new version of facts. Such as the huge Ranch of a 1000 acres with the Mansion and Servant quarters with several barns or more was nothing but a small 25 acre home and with a small house. The Colonial in the Civil who fought in all the major battles was a Pvt. who served 4 mo. with hardly any battle contact. I have spent years researching only to find that 20% or less of the family tales were factual. The Court House produces facts from Wills, Land Deeds, Service Records (many kept locally), Criminal and Surrogate & Probate Court Records.. If I had to choose between talking to a family elder or the Court House, the Court House would be my 1st Choice.
Of course one has to use the family traditions and stories as clues–and often there’s a level of fiction mixed in with the fact. And one should never take as gospel information provided by a relative from memory. My own family has a story of going to the Gold Rush in California that ends with the relative nearly being eaten by cannibals on the way home. The only part of the entire drama that may be true is the going to California part. My own grandmother insisted she was born in a town she wasn’t, but her baptismal story (which I wrote off as her being wrong because it sounded a little off), turned out to be correct. Identifying people in pictures and getting other ephemera is sometimes easier before the person has passed and things get thrown away or details get forgotten, if they were even passed on at all. I’d never suggest not using the records and materials one could at a courthouse, but for all the potential pitfalls, I’d get the family stories too.