Court Records  Naturalization & Probate  Adoption  Bankruptcy  Civil proceedings  Criminal proceedings  Divorce  Guardianships  Mortgage  Property disputes ancestry.com/library/view/ancmag/4106.asp

Adoption  Most cases the records are sealed. Only the adoptee can open the records when they reach the legal age. Rare cases when others have opened the records Rare cases could be a need to learn genetic medical conditions  Have to secure a court order to open the case  Before 20 th century adoptions were handled quietly, and within the families, outside of legal system. Some parish priests could have made notes in their records.

Bankruptcy  Economic hardships have marked this in America’s history  They are common in some time periods Look at the rate of bankruptcies today in Utah  Bankruptcies are filed in federal courts, intended to protect the individual from the creditors

Civil Proceedings  Property disputes  Small claims  Slander  False accusations  These records are a peek into the daily lives of our ancestors. They show the mood of the community and the people

Criminal Proceedings  These are referred to as case files  Can yield interesting information  Might learn things we really did not want to know Robert Jens Hatfield's and the Mc Cloy's (family feuds)

Divorce  Less common in the 1900’s  Filed at the local level of court system  Sometimes the divorce was initiated, but never completed

Guardianships  May seem unusual, but they are more common than you might think  A widow could not take care of her children Children made award of the state and placed in an orphanage or court appointed guardian Sometimes the man would arrange guardianship before his death in a will  Documentation of guardianship is sometimes placed in what is called a Orphan’s Court

Mortgage  These are filed in local courts  How many times have you financed a home. Look at the paper trail you are leaving for your descendants  There is a web site for unclaimed property

Property Disputes  Communities have been without a police force, so the courts assumed the role of keeping the peace  Handled in local courts

Court Locations  3 levels of courts Local court or county court (valualble information at this level. –Determine where they are located, town, county, remember boundaries have changed over time State or supreme court –Unlikely to find much at this level regarding genealogical data Federal –Can be an excellent resource. Bankruptcy information –There are 89 federal district courts, plus the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court

Using Court Records  Most court records are indexed  Many cases there are 2 separate indexes Plaintiffs Defendants  Learn how the information is organized and accessed  Hundreds of rolls have been microfilmed and are at the Family History Library  Some counties are making the records available online through local or county Web sites

Pitfalls & Limitations  Indexes are not complete records  Indexes are secondary sources  Not all court records have been fully indexed  Original source might be hard to locate. Use Ancestry’s Red Book to locate the towns and counties  Some court offices have limited help. Sometimes fellow researches are more help in locating the records

Can be very time-consuming  Have a specific objective in mind  Schedule enough research time  Learn what records are available and how to use them  Learn as much as possible about the people you are researching before you turn to court records

Web Sites     