Courthouses are located all over the United States, in every county and parish. They have been in existence since the beginning of each geographical area and contain the records of all of the people who live and have lived in that jurisdiction.
The County Courthouse is a mecca for the lineage researcher. Documents date back hundreds of years and contain the business and personal lives of residents, providing answers to dates, events and places to complete a family tree.
Many counties have boundary lines which have changed. Thus, one courthouse may house the records of several counties over time. For instance, Kaufman County, Texas was formerly part of Henderson County and before that, it was part of Nacogdoches County, Texas. Thus, a researcher needs to determine the geographical history of a county in order to know where to search for historical records and may need to look in the various courthouses for the ancestor's records.
In the County Clerk's office, you will find birth and death records, land and deed records, county court records, old criminal and dispute records, and marriage records. Some county clerks may also have plat records for older cemeteries.
In the tax assessor's office, you will find county tax records and names of land and property owners.
In the District Clerk's office, you will find court records such as probate, divorce, disputes of all kinds and criminal records.
Birth, marriage and death records provide dates, places and parents for those born or died in that county or parish and those married there.
Land, tax and deed records provide places of residence, times of residence and names of heirs of land owners.
Probate records, oftentimes, provide all of the names of heirs and relationships to the decedent, as well as descriptions of property and holdings of the decedent and their date and place of death. A Last Will and Testament and/or estate distribution is a valuable link for one generation to another.
These documents, pieced together, provide an excellent resource for the story of the life of an ancestor and their immediate family.
If some unfortunate circumstance has destroyed the records of a courthouse (such as a fire or storm), many times a duplicate set of county records will be housed in the state archives.
Creativity is necessary when digging for decades old documentation, but finding that diamond in the rough that gives you the information on your ancestors is well worth the time and diligent effort of looking.
Happy researching!
Carrie Anne Wilson Woolverton
FB: Veteran's Daughter
Family Tree Productions
Carrie Anne Woolverton
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.