Tag Archives: Court Records

No Kids, Never Had Siblings, and Died With Some Cash

Is there a relative who never had any children of their own, had no siblings and died owning enough property to require a probate or an estate settlement?

If so, the records of that settlement may be particularly interesting. The deceased person’s heirs-at-law typically would have been their first cousins or their first cousin’s descendants. Even if there was a will, these heirs-at-law typically would have had to have been notified of the probate. Those records could help determine relationships and indicate where people were living at the time the relative died.

These estate or probate records would typically be filed at the local court level.

State Institution?

Was your ancestor institutionalized for a short time or for the last few years of their life? If so, they might have died a distance from where they actually lived. Records of the actual institution may be closed, but there might be local court records of the institutionalization. People who were sent to institutions weren’t always “crazy,” but might have simply needed more care than the family could give.

And they might have been buried on the grounds of the institution–leaving no tombstone behind either.

Why Was The Record Created?

Do you know the original purpose of the record you are using for your research? It most likely was not genealogy. Land deeds were created to transfer real property, tax records were used to document the wealth of an individual so that taxes could be collected, court testimony was used to gather evidence to make a decision in a specific case, etc.

Why a document was created impacts the information it contains and how reliable that information may be perceived for genealogy research.