Miscellaneous

Are Your Roots Showing?

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Who are your people?

You might be related to one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or (as Matt Groening says) a "crafty trilobite."

Senator Obama found out he was a distant cousin of Vice President Cheney. There have been numerous stories about Obama's Kansan relatives. Who knows what one might find if one searches the Kansas District Court probate records?

People use the Internet, the (sometimes conflicting) wisdom of older relatives, and other research tools to find their roots. Probate courts, long thought of as something to avoid, are quite popular among root-seekers.

In Virginia, the Wise County and Norton City clerk of court, Jack Kennedy, was a pioneer in putting old records online. They have assembled a database of church histories and provide a link to the Wise County Historical Society. The court is over 150 years old, and seems to throw nothing away!

Say you do want to purge your probate records. What can you do? We know of at least one court that gave custody of its older records to the historical society. This seems like a win-win-win situation: the records are in an obvious place for those who are looking for them, the historical society obtains valuable documents, and the court inches toward paperlessness.

Some court libraries have a history division for these things. The Hamilton County (Ohio) Probate Court has a handy list of contacts for researchers. Maybe you're related to William Howard Taft or Bootsy Collins! Here are a few others:

• The Kalamazoo County Probate Court has records dating from 1832 to 1955. If you're confused about who's who, they also provide a generic family tree explaining the difference between a 4th cousin once removed and a 2nd counsin twice removed!


• Ohio's Miami County Probate Court has records dating from 1807-1900.


• Vermont Probate Court Research Information


• Wisconsin's Dane County Registrar in Probate offers information about obtaining records from the court and the state historical society.

See Probing into Probate Records, Kimberly Powell, About.com.

For some classic celebrity probate fun (is there any other kind?), see Mary Pickford Oscar Dispute off to Mediation, Denise Goolsby, Desert Sun (January 2, 2008). May the Oscar go to the craftiest trilobite!

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on January 31, 2008 (boomark / email).