Your Guide to Researching Your Family in Courthouse Records

About Using Courthouse Records

  • Understanding Courthouse Indexes
  • Locating and Contacting the Court
  • Courthouse Etiquette

The Records (on separate pages)

About Using Courthouse Records:

Books:

Franklin. Keys to the Courthouse (4 vols) (find in a library)

  • vol. 1 Jurisdictions
  • vol. 2 The Records
  • vol. 3 Unusual Records
  • vol. 4 Analyzing the Records

Rose. Courthouse Research for Family Historians: Your Guide to Genealogical Treasures , 2004
(Find in a library)

Handybook for Genealogists (10th or 11th edition) and/or Ancestry's Redbook (you'll want the 3rd edition) includes information on what records can be found in the county courthouses, as well as providing contact information for the courthouse. But a newer book is on the market and I think I like it best for the clarity of presentation of courthouse information. It is The Family Tree Resource Book for Genealogical Research (find in a library)

Bentley. County Courthouse Book -- a directory of courthouses. Note it is about 10 years old. I wonder if it will be updated, since it is now so easy to find the information on the web.

Tapes:

Audio-tapes of talks given at genealogy conventions with "Courthouse" in the title

Audio-tapes of talks given at genealogy conventions with the term "burned" in them; most deal with finding records when those normally found in a courthouse have been lost due to fire.

Articles on the Web

* Allen. Beginner's Guide to .... Courthouse Research.
*Beginners Guide to Family History Research: Courthouse Records
* Davenport. Courthouse Research: Satisfaction or Frustration.
* Devin. Clues in the Courthouse.
* Genealolgy.com All About Town and County Resources
*Library of Michigan. Genealogical Research with Courthouse Records
* Marriage Dates (in the courthouse records)
* Neill. Courthouse Lessons Learned
* Rootsweb Guide. Court Records
*Sperry. What to Do When the Courthouse Burns.
* Morgan. Five Reasons it's not in the Courthouse
* Morgan. How to Work with the Courthouse Staff.
* Neill. Court Records. Finding Your Ancestors.
* Pylant. Etiquette for Courthouse Research.
* Rose. Your Visit to the Courthouse

Finding Courthouses Online

Directory of U.S. County Courthouses (but lacks links to websites). With the address in hand, though, you can do an easy google search that includes the court title and zip code, e.g.googling "Genesee County Clerk" 48502 brings up the Genesee County Michigan County Clerk's website and "Genesee County Clerk" 14021-0379 brings up the link to the New York Genesee County Clerk. You may have to do some digging around to find the page you want.

Courthouse Direct includes addresses and links to home pages ("homepage" under the phone number ) of county governments, but you will have to do some click searching to find the webpages of the courts.

Free Public Records Directory takes you to a variety of resources for a county... some of the free are quite useful, but for some you will have to go to the home page for the county and dig around to find the page you want. Also, some of the links are for paid searches and will take you to a site that charges for the search.

Indexes (examples)

Marriages

Grantor Index

Grantee/Grantor Index

Grouping first names

Cott Index