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Court Houses

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Posted by Your Guide on July 6, 2006 9:46 PM

Court houses are the genealogist's best source of information. They maintain records from many years ago, protecting the information from those who should not have it while making it accessible to those who should. Court houses keep records of who is born, who died, who got married and who divorced. They keep records of land that is bought and sold, tax documents, and those who make mistakes that land them in the local jail. They keep up with the wills, deeds, land grants, and property lines of their county and keep records of corrections that need to be made in official records.

Vital Records, such as births and deaths, are often closed to the general public due to abuses and identity theft. However, those records can be made available after a certain amount of time to those who are related to the individuals. Other records, such as marriage and divorce records are often open and made available in person or on the internet for viewing by others. Official copies of any vital record document can be obtained from the State Vital Records Office.

Land Records, deeds, and old land grants are documents that are open for public viewing. Using a buyers or sellers index, family history researchers can find out if their ancestor bought or sold land in the county. Legal descriptions tell where the property was located, but are different in different states. It may be that you will need someone from the court house or a real estate attorney to help you figure out what the legal description actually says.

Wills and probate records tell what happens to a person's estate after their death and are also indexed by the date and/or the name of the deceased person. Probate birth records, on the other hand, are official records which record births that happened many years ago that were not registered at the time of the birth. Many people find that their grandparent's births were not recorded at the time of their birth, but they later filed for a probate birth certificate in order to file for social security benefits. Probate birth records are indexed in separate books than original birth records in most court houses.

Guardianships are granted in many families when one family member is no longer able to care for their minor children or aging adults. In these cases, guardianships are watched over by the court system and those records are kept in the court house. These records can help genealogists find out what happened to minor children in a home if both parents were no longer able to care for their children.



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