If you find a relative in a court record, do you know how to search for transcripts of testimony, petitions of plaintiff, responses of defendant, and other original court documents? Entries in journals and ledgers may only be part of the record and are a great place to start, but there may be more. The difficulty is that in some cases these records were never kept in the first place or they are no longer extant. But it is worth your while to find out. The local courthouse that houses the court record you’ve found is the first place to look. Local historical/genealogical societies may be able to give some guidance in addition to locals familiar with the records. Older records may have been transferred to the appropriate […]
While working on a Virginia family at the FamilySearch Library in Salt Lake City, I located some court records that partially explained a family and their relationships. It also confused me more than I already was about a few other things. I thought if I just kept looking at the information and beat my head against the wall (so to speak), I would eventually “figure it out” and the likely scenario would dawn on me. It didn’t. Time spent drawing out the possible scenarios was better spent looking for more records, crossing sources off my search list, etc. It’s usually best to wait until the research is complete to start trying to put it all together. Of course, one is going to conjecture and speculate as new materials […]
Remember that 1 January was not always the first day of the new year. A few links with more information:
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