County Records and Genealogy

Within the counties are numerous records with genealogical information besides the ones we've discussed. Chances are, some of them have been filmed, although each county has many more records still in their original form. Before you head out to the county to check on these records, check the Family History Library catalog online at www.familysearch.org or at your nearest Family History Center to see what has been filmed for your county of interest. Always remember, however, that errors can occur, and that a filmed series may be incomplete.

Guardianships

Guardianship and orphan records are important to genealogists. They are usually found in the county probate court records. When a decedent left an estate that required administration or probate, and left minor children as heirs, the court appointed a guardian to act in the children's interests. Sometimes children in the same family had different guardians. The children may have been from different marriages, or there may have been so many children as to make it impractical for one person to care for them all. If you find a child selecting a guardian rather than the court assigning one, usually that child is over the age of 14 but under 21. Children older than 14 could legally make their own selection.

When you find the record of a guardian having been appointed or selected, don't stop there. Guardians appear in court records regularly, reporting on income and expenses in administering the affairs of their charges, or perhaps protesting the management of a farm or business in which the charge has an interest. When the child came of age, a final accounting was submitted to the court. If that record survives, it might provide more information on your ancestor.

If a child inherited property from a deceased mother, the father (or someone else) may have been appointed as guardian for the child's interests. The records created by a child inheriting from a deceased mother's estate can provide you with the maiden name of the mother. Someone might have petitioned to be guardian for children “entitled to distributive shares of the estate of their grandmother Catherine Carter by reason of the death of their mother Elizabeth Shimmin.” Now you have three generations—the children, their mother, their grandmother. And the petitioner is probably related, too.

Orphans, Apprentices, and the Poor

Orphans were not always children without parents. Sometimes they were children with one parent who could not support them. As with the other poor, the county often accepted responsibility for them. Orphans were sometimes sent to institutions: workhouses, almshouses, poorhouses, or asylums. Look for county records of the poor; these records are seldom microfilmed. Records of the institutions under some form of governmental jurisdiction may be at the county or state level. The records of privately run orphanages can be difficult to locate; they may be in historical societies, university libraries, or private collections, or they may no longer exist.

Poor children were often sent out by their parents as apprentices to learn a trade. A father without the means to provide for all his children might designate in his will that one or more of the children should be apprenticed to a specific trade. The master who took on an apprentice was usually obligated to feed, clothe, and educate the child until a certain age, and perhaps required to give him a suit of clothes, a small sum of money, and a Bible when released.

Acting on Behalf

Powers of attorney can contain marvelous genealogical information. Seek them out when you visit the courthouse. Though they are sometimes recorded in the deed books, often they are a separate set of books with their own index, or each book may be individually indexed.

Powers of attorney were often given by individuals who were settling land transactions at some distance from their residences. The individual who inherited property in another state and wanted to sell it might not have been willing or able to travel to that state. The person often appointed someone to act on his or her behalf. The document appointing an agent, often a relative or close friend, might provide details of what was being sold.

In Kentucky, in 1807, Hugh Rose, “a native of Amherst Co., Virginia, now a surgeon in the 1st Regiment of Infantry,” gave power of attorney to two individuals to convey property that was part of his father's estate, and “my Sister Paulina's Estate who died Intestate and without an heir, also my properties … left by my grandfather Robert Rose, left to his sons, John, Hugh, Henry, Patrick and Charles ….”

The document was executed in New Orleans where Rose was stationed. Look at the details: his birthplace; his current residence and occupation; the location of the property; and the names of his grandfather, uncles, and sister. The information is important in and of itself, but it also offers many leads for continuing research.

Taxing Matters

Tax records are important to genealogists. There were poll taxes, a tax on all free white males in a community over a specified age, and property taxes, both real and personal. Personal property tax records can document the existence of ancestors who owned no land. They verify that an individual was in a particular place at a particular time. If the person remained there, he should appear on the tax rolls year after year. Property tax rolls reflect the acquisition or divestiture of land. The tax information may guide you to more records. If an individual disappears from the tax rolls, you'll know that he reached an age (or condition, such as blindness or poverty) of exemption from tax, died, or left the area. Any one of those reasons is valuable to your research.

Tax records are best used not in isolation, but in a series. If you find your ancestor on a tax list, follow him year by year back to his first appearance and forward to the year he disappeared from the roll. There may be some gaps in the existing records, but try to follow your ancestor throughout the rolls. Occasionally, abstracts of tax records are published and indexed, but original tax records are not indexed.

Waving the Flag—Vote!

If your ancestor participated in the political process, you may find voter registration records. These records may be in the county along with current registrations, or they may have been transferred to the state archives. Voter registration information varies from state to state but can include such vital information as birth date, marital status, residence, telephone number, citizenship data, and physical description. More current registration rolls have residence and telephone number, and may have party affiliation. Accessibility to voter registers depends upon the laws of the state in which you are researching. A few voter registrations are online; see “Voters, Poll Books, Electoral Records” at www.cyndislist.com.

Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Genealogy © 2005 by Christine Rose and Kay Germain Ingalls. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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