Now I'm going to switch gears and talk about finding actual COURTHOUSE RECORDS which can include VITAL-BIRTH, DEATH, MARRIAGE RECORDS, PROBATES, LAND RECORDS, etc. Not many of these court records are online which means you may have to write to a court clerk or visit a courthouse sometime to further your research or hire a local genealogist to do that for you. Addresses of Courthouses can be found on USGenWeb.org or with GOOGLE. (Coryell Texas Courthouse below where my husband was born and raised.)
SUMMARY OF RECORDS available online, in Court houses and/or other places like libraries
1. LOCALITY records-censuses, histories of towns, counties, states, regions, etc.
2. VITAL RECORDS-marriage, death, birth, adoption, etc., kept in counties+towns, some online, varies by state or area when and how they collected info.
3. COURT RECORDS-probate, land, tax and adoption records, divorce, citizenship, naturalization papers, etc.
4. CHURCH RECORDS-can have vital records: births, deaths, marriages, confirmations, baptisms, etc.
5. BIOGRAPHIES-can be found in county and town histories and other local collections
6. MAPS-plat maps, etc. It's fun to find where your ancestors lived and walk on their land.
7. NEWSPAPERS-obituaries, marriages, etc-lots of digital newspapers on-line, do google search by areas-country, state, county and some towns have local papers with archives.
8. CEMETERY and funeral home records-may need to write to get these, check death certificates for where buried.
9. MILITARY RECORDS-many ancestors were involved in wars, Google search+ www.nara.gov, and www.ancestry.com
10. CITY DIRECTORIES and old telephone books-good for unusual last names, find in libraries
11. ORGANIZATIONS-State, County Historical Libraries and local Historical Societies can have good local genealogy collections.
12. Personal WEBPAGES and BLOGS-find with a search engine. Check out my family history webpage www.geocities.com/famhistory1867
That's quite a majestic edifice! Is that where you live?
ReplyDeleteLin,
ReplyDeleteDo town clerk's have access to this stuff? Anyone else?
I am thinking it would be very cool to work with all that good ol' info.
Do you know if town historians have access to this sort of info?
This is some good info, Lin. Several months ago I was able to find my OWN marriage info online...surprise surprise. I also found my brothers' and my birth info. That was cool.
ReplyDeleteI never would have thought of a courthouse either...It must have been so much more difficult before the internet....
ReplyDelete