Surprises Wait in Courthouse Records!

Our ancestors interacted with government officials on a regular basis at their county courthouses. Not just for recording births, marriages, and deaths, the courthouse was also for paying taxes, settling disputes, filing wills and probates, and obtaining business licenses and a wide variety of permits. The county courthouse was the center of the legal life of the community, and many of them still contain thousands of unique documents that can help us with our research.

Because digitizing and indexing records is a slow and expensive process, many courthouses, especially in smaller and poorer locations, are still working with paper records. They are often in thick, heavy ledgers or cumbersome metal boxes and drawers lining walls from floor to ceiling, and sometimes they are only accessible via rickety ladders. The vast amount of paper stored in some courthouses has proven to be vulnerable to fire, mold, and fungus, especially when space becomes limited, and records are not kept in archival conditions. For those reasons, some courthouses have moved their records to other locations.

(Will book from Christian County, Illinois, early 1900s)

So why do we want to bother with courthouse records? As with anything else, you never know what you will find! Tucked away in a courthouse basement, you may discover deeds to property with hand-drawn maps showing you all the neighbors. You may find birth and marriage registers not required by the state but kept at the county level in ledgers. There is likely to be an assortment of unique documents that are nowhere else but in that cluttered courthouse basement, just waiting for you to discover them.

How do you tackle courthouse research? You can get some guidance by joining us at our upcoming hybrid event, the 50th annual Family History Conference on Saturday, 14 May 2022, to hear StLGS projects director, Carol Whitton, CG, help you navigate this important resource, and Ilene Murray, StLGS publications director, will give you scads of tips to get you prepared for your research trip. All of the information you need to register is on our website. You can still register for the in-person conference until Wednesday, 11 May, and the Zoom livestreaming registration remains open until the day of the conference.

Fan Charts

At this year’s Family History conference, you will have a chance to print fan charts! We have beautiful seven or nine-generation charts for sale, and, if you bring a flash drive with your genealogy file saved as a GEDCOM, you can print your chart on site and take it home with you.

Our full-color charts are suitable for framing, as shown in the graphic, and make excellent gifts for Mother's and Father's Day (not to mention birthdays and family reunions!)

You will find lots more details, a booklet explaining how to create your GEDCOM file, and instructions for ordering a chart, if you can’t come to the conference in person, on the Fan Chart page on our website.