Genealogy Insider - courtRecords

I've been itching for a chance to do in-person research at the courthouse where my ancestors lived ever since an archivist researcher recommended research there.

My great-grandmother spent two years in the Cleveland State Hospital before her death in 1926, and I requested a search of hospital admission and discharge records at the Ohio state archives (the hospital registers are closed to the public, so I couldn't view them myself). The archivist sent copies of the records (all names obscured except my ancestor's) with a suggestion to check the Cuyahoga County probate court for a commitment hearing.

The probate court handles wills and estates, marriages, guardianships and adoptions. When I contacted the court, I was told the staff doesn't fulfill research requests, but I was welcome to go in person to look for the record.

So my chance is coming up with the Ohio Genealogical Society conference April 12-14 in Cleveland! I'm super-excited—it's been awhile since I've done hands-on research.

I figure while I'm there, I also can look up some other records: a great-uncle's marriage that's just a hair too recent to be on Family History Library microfilm, as well as some relatives' probate files.

I looked up the courthouse website and called to verify research hours and find out about any special requirements.

I also searched for case file numbers in the probate court online Case Records Search System an index that provides information including names of parties, dates and case numbers. (Not all courts have this type of index, but a web search on the county and court should find one if it does exist.) That should make most of my searching relatively easy, knock on wood.

But the index doesn't go as far back as 1924, when the commitment hearing would've happened, so I'm crossing my fingers hard that a hearing took place. I'll keep you updated on how it goes.

court records | Genealogy Events

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 4:48:58 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Friday, October 21, 2011

New: Irish Prison Records at FindMyPast.ie
Posted by Diane

Do you have an Irish ancestor who served time? You might have one who served time and you don’t know about it, given that FindMyPast.ie’s new Irish Prison Registers 1790-1920 database contains 3.5 million entries at a time when Ireland’s population averaged 4.08 million.

The prison registers, which came the National Archives of Ireland, cover bridewells (places of detention), county prisons, sanatoriums for alcoholics and other institutions. Most records give the prisoner’s name, address, place of birth, occupation, religion, education, age, physical description, name and address of next of kin, crime, sentence, and incarceration start and ending dates.

Drunkenness accounted for more than 30 percent of crimes reported and more than 25 percent of incarcerations. Other common offenses in the registers are theft (16 percent), assault (12 percent), vagrancy (8 percent) and rioting (4 percent).

You can access the records with a FindMyPast.ie subscription or with PayAsYouGo credits.

For help finding Irish ancestors in court and other records, check out Family Tree University’s Irish Research 101 and 102 courses, as well as our $4 Irish Heritage Research Guide from ShopFamilyTree.com.

court records | UK and Irish roots

Friday, October 21, 2011 10:47:02 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

FamilySearch Adds South Carolina Genealogy Resources
Posted by Diane

FamilySearch has announced new South Carolina genealogy resources to mark the National Genealogical Society Family History Conference, going on now in Charleston, SC:

South Carolina Probate Records, Files and Loose Papers, 1732-1964 have been added to the FamilySearch record site (this collection hasn’t been indexed, so you’ll need to browse the record images).

South Carolina Probate Records, Bound Volumes, 1671-1977, also have been added (also browse-only).

A South Carolina section is now in the FamilySearch Research Wiki.

Probate records can be helpful in researching African-American ancestors, because probate files of slave owners often contain inventories of their slaves.

The Civil War, which of course started 150 years ago at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, is the talk of this year’s NGS conference. Click here to see FamilySearch’s related announcement about its Civil War records.

African-American roots | court records | FamilySearch | Free Databases

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 9:31:11 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

FamilySearch Adds New Records Online
Posted by jamie

FamilySearch has expanded again, adding over a million records and images to its already gargantuan digital depository.

It bolstered state-specific collections, as well as collections from Canada, Spain and Venezuela, by adding more names and digital images to existing indexes. FamilySearch also updated the U.S. Social Security Death Index database with more names and digital images, and created new databases of records that were not previously available online.

The new and updated collections include:

Note the indexes are free to access, but you must create a free account to view digital images of the original record.

View all of FamilySearch's online offerings on its historical records collections page.

court records | FamilySearch | Vital Records

Wednesday, December 29, 2010 11:01:14 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Ancestry.co.uk Adds 6 Million Names From Probate Records
Posted by Diane

British genealogy subscription site Ancestry.co.uk has added a database called the National Probate Calendar, 1861-1941, which has 6 million names and other information from wills and probate records created in England and Wales during those years. (This database also is available on Canadian subscription site Ancestry.ca and on Ancestry.com.)

In England, the Principal Probate Registry has been responsible for the probate process since 1858. Cases were summarized in the registry’s National Probate Calendar.

“There’s an entry for the vast majority of people who died in that period,” says Ancestry.co.uk spokesperson Russell James. The calendar may provide the deceased person’s full name, date and place of death, executor of his or her will (often another family member) and value of the estate.

You can use the information in the database to write the Principal Probate Registry for copies of the deceased’s will and probate records.

Related resource from Family Tree Magazine:

Best websites for British Isles researchers (free article)
English Roots Online Toolkit (free article)
British Genealogy Guide Digital Download (from ShopFamilyTree.com)

Ancestry.com | court records | UK and Irish roots

Thursday, August 12, 2010 12:20:23 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Monday, January 04, 2010

Ohio Probate Court Posts Online Records Archive
Posted by Diane

The probate court for Hamilton County, Ohio—location of our hometown of Cincinnati—launched an Archived Record Search for records from 1791 to 1994.

It's not a database search where you type in a name. Instead, you open image files (PDFs or TIFs) of index books and/or record books for records including:

Estates, 1791 to 1984

Wills, 1791 to 1973

Trusts, 1791 to 1984

Guardianships, 1791 to 1984

Marriages, 1808 to 1983

Minister's Licenses, 1963 to 1975 (index books only)

Birth Records, 1863 to 1908

Birth Registrations and Corrections, 1941 to 1994

Death Records, 1881 to 1908

Naturalizations, 1856 to 1906 (index books only; you can request photocopies from surviving record books from the court, or rent Family History Library microfilm through a Family History Center)

Probate Court Journal Entries, 1791 to 1837 (no index; you must browse by volume and page number)

Physician Certificates, 1919 to 1987 (no index; you must browse by volume and page number)

I spent most of the Bengals' game last night opening and looking through the digitized books. I found a few people who may be relatives—giving me something to add to my 2010 to-do list.

Start by going to the Archive Record Search page and clicking the link for the type of record you’re interested in. On the next page, read the information: it’ll tell you whether the website has the index and/or the record volumes, whether the court has additional index or record volumes that aren’t online, years of coverage, and how complete the records are.

If an index book is online, click the name of the record at the top of the page. Click on the alphabetical range for the surname you want, which opens the file (it may take awhile). You might have to check several index books if you're not sure of the year you need.

You also might have to scroll through the entire index: In some cases, surnames aren't alphabetized beyond the first letter, or all S surnames with E first names (for example) might be grouped.

Once you find a suspected relative in the index book, note the volume and page number. Then, if the record book is online, go back to the main page for that record and search for a volume and page number to see the record. Otherwise—assuming the record book still exists—you can request photocopies from the court or see if it's on FHL microfilm.

If there's no index book, check the information on the site to see which volumes cover which years. Then type in your best guess of a volume and page number, and start browsing.

court records | Free Databases | Vital Records

Monday, January 04, 2010 9:04:44 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Friday, September 04, 2009

Searching Microfilmed Newspapers
Posted by Diane

This Federation of Genealogical Societies conference is the first confab outside Ohio where I’ve been able to research ancestors. As soon as I got to Little Rock Wednesday, I checked into the hotel and ran off to the state archives.

I didn’t have a specific article to find—rather, I wanted any news item about my great-grandfather’s criminal trial for bootlegging. There wasn’t a name index, so I knew I was in for some heavy-duty scrolling. I had the conviction and incarceration dates, but not a date of arrest, so I had several months to cover in 1913.

First thing when I arrived, I got my very own research card. The archivist had me double-check holdings for the newspapers I wanted. I’d neglected to bring singles or a $5 bill for a copy card, so I also ran to the concession and bought a soda to get change.

Next, I requested a couple years’ worth of microfilm and started scrolling. I started with the dates I knew and scrolled backward through earlier papers, then forward, looking for headlines on the faded pages.

Bootlegging arrests filled the news--apparently the sheriff was really cracking down. The few items mentioning my ancestor’s name told when he was arrested, how he filed for a writ of habeas corpus, and how two others arrested at the same time jumped bail.

Though not the play-by-play trial accounts I was hoping for, the articles also gave me a clue to what might’ve happened to his missing court records. He served his prison sentence in Texas and his case is indexed in Bowie County, Texas, records, but a batch of files that includes his case number is missing.

According to the newspaper articles, some witnesses lived on the Arkansas side of Texarkana, and Bowie County officials traveled to the courthouse in Miller County, Ark., for a pretrial motion. So maybe his case file ended up in Arkansas.

Miller County court records for the years I need aren’t on Family History Library microfilm, so I’ll send a request to the circuit court clerk the minute I get home. Fingers crossed.

court records | Libraries and Archives | Newspapers

Friday, September 04, 2009 10:23:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Friday, July 31, 2009

Crimes of Your Great-Grandfathers
Posted by Diane

A couple of months ago, when I was editing an article criminal ancestors for the forthcoming November 2009 Family Tree Magazine, I asked Family Tree Magazine E-mail Update newsletter readers about murders and other crimes in their family history.

Dozens of you responded with stories—some are fascinating (in a can't-look-away kind of way), some are amusing (in a gallows-humor kind of way) and some are sad. Here's a sampling of them:

Carol Clemens' family legend was that her great-grandfather Martin Franchetti was accidentally shot and killed by a stray bullet from a saloon brawl in 1902.

After finding references to seven newspaper articles within a couple of months, she discovered her ancestor was shot during an argument with a former boarder who’d developed a crush on Franchetti’s wife. Clemens says help from the Schenectady County Clerk’s office was invaluable in locating the perpetrator's criminal trial records.

Cheri Adams couldn’t find anything about her the family of her great-great-grandmother’s second husband. A Google search brought up a New York Times article stating that the husband, Elijah Godfrey, was killed while handling dynamite in his cabin. Another article revealed that the medical examiner thought it was murder. “It seems Elijah had been speaking with authorities regarding stills in the area," writes Adams, "and undoubtedly due to his loose lips, the owners of the stills took revenge.”

Tom Neel of the Ohio Genealogical Society found an account in a 1915 county history about John Gately, his fourth-great-grandfather from North Carolina. “Sometime after the year 1793,” Gately’s father-in-law, thinking the younger man had stolen his money, killed him.

Neel found corroboration in court records while at this year’s National Genealogical Society conference in Raleigh, NC. Turns out the aging father-in-law had misplaced his stash.

Domenic Parenty, great-grandfather to Janice Gianotti-Zakis, was "gunned down in the street, defending a woman" in Chicago in 1894. In 2002, she confirmed the story in police records from microfiche at Northeastern Illinois University. Now, her ancestor’s case is chronicled on the site Homicide in Chicago: 1870-1930.

Kathleen Anders wasn’t interested in genealogy when she found a tombstone in a Nebraska cemetery with the names of two young people who died on the same day. On a return trip, the caretaker furnished a file of newspaper clippings: Anders' great-grandfather had taken the lives of his brother and sister-in-law in 1903. Over the next two years, she found the trial transcript and interviewed people who remembered her family.

With the mystery solved, she’s turned to ancestors whose less sensational lives still deserve to be known. “I now focus on the other lines of the family that have, in their own right, great stories to be researched and written about.”

Carol Heap’s grandfather Frederick Hirsch, a Nassau County, NY, police officer, was killed in the line of duty May 6, 1931, by a 19-year-old nicknamed "Two Gun Crowley." Crowley was convicted and sent to Sing Sing prison in New York, where he was executed in the electric chair in 1932. Hirsch's wife raised four young children alone; Heap remembers her father saying he really missed having a Dad.

Connie Parott received a copy of a relative's 1970s school essay detailing her third-great grandfather's efforts to track down the murderer of his brother Thomas at a Sylamore, Ark., Christmas Eve dance in 1877.

She found several news articles, “but to my amazement,” she writes, “the stories favored excessive details about the murderer, but nothing about the victim. The murderer had accidentally shot himself in the leg while hiding in the woods. His leg was amputated, so the newspapers had a field day describing a one-legged man hanging from the gallows.”

Forum members also posted stories and tips for researching ancestral crimes here. You'll also find advice in the previously mentioned November 2009 Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands Sept. 8.

court records | Family Tree Magazine articles | Newspapers | Social History

Friday, July 31, 2009 3:47:24 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Me vs. Court Records at the Family History Library
Posted by Diane

I got into it with some court records during last Saturday’s Family History Library research match. When the final bell rang, the judges put their heads together for a few minutes and declared the score … a tie.

Out of the two cases I was looking for, a criminal trial and a divorce petition, I found the petition.

After much scrolling of microfilm, I located both cases listed in a handwritten index (in multiple indexes, in fact, which was a bit confusing). In a roll of district court minutes, I learned the divorce was transferred to a special district court.

The special district minutes, on a different roll of microfilm, reported the case was dismissed with court costs to be paid by the plaintiff, my great-grandmother (that made me chuckle—she was destitute; I doubt they ever got their money), but didn’t say why.

On yet another roll of film, I scored a pretty good hit: The case file held the divorce petition with my great-grandmother’s accusations against her husband, as well as a court order for the sheriff to serve him. He’d pled guilty to violating local liquor laws and was a guest of the state penitentiary at the time.

His case was even more challenging. The index gave a minute book number and a page number, but neither seemed to match up with the content on any roll of the FHL’s court records microfilm for the county. The trial was in June 1913, yet the case file number in the index corresponded to cases in the 1880s, long before my great-grandfather was in the country.

On the recommendation of the information desk consultant, I checked the 1880s case file film to see if a long-ago court clerk had misfiled the records. A batch of files that would’ve included my great-grandfather’s case file number was missing. There must’ve been a blip in the numbering system at some point.

Then I scrolled through the case papers for 1913—maybe the indexer wrote down the wrong number. Nothing.

The consultant pointed out that keeping track of the papers a court action generated over a stretch of time was particularly difficult before computers. And of course it’s possible the records escaped microfilming or are just gone.

I once requested my great-grandfather’s case records from the county court, but at that time all I knew was the date, not the information from the index, and my letter was returned with the note “found nothing.” Now, having spent hours glued to a microfilm reader getting nauseous from the whirring images, I hope my request didn’t cost the clerk half a day’s work.

I’ll probably risk the clerk’s ire and send another, very polite, request for a search, along with a photocopy of the index page.

court records | Family Tree Firsts | FamilySearch

Wednesday, January 14, 2009 8:02:35 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

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Monday, September 24, 2007

Proceedings of London's Old Bailey Courthouse Online
Posted by Diane

I came across a cool resource while researching our Now What blog question about convicts sentenced to indentured servitude abroad.

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1834 is a searchable version of the accounts of more than 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.

Elizabeth Cox is one of the “non-elite” (as the site calls them) whose trials are detailed here. On Oct. 8, 1684, she was found guilty of petty larceny for stealing a silk gown from George Winterton’s shop. Her sentence? Whipping.

The same day, a “notorious thief” named Anne Parker, who’d been convicted three times of stealing silver from households where she was employed as servant, received respite from her death sentence due to pregnancy.

You can browse by date or search the trials on a name, date, keyword, crime, place and a variety of other terms. Click a match for a transcription of the trial account, links to other trials the same day, plus a digitized image of the account as it appeared in the original volumes of Old Bailey proceedings.

The site also offers fascinating background information on the courthouse, laws of the day, the gender factor in criminal proceedings, and London communities.

Even better, a digitization project is underway for trials from 1834 to 1913.

court records | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | Social History

Monday, September 24, 2007 8:51:19 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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