If the records you want are on films that have been digitized (those are camera icons in the right-hand "format" column), then you may get to have a genealogy staycation instead.
I just viewed the index books (also digitized) and pulled two key deeds for an ancestor in Ashtabula County, Ohio, whose property was sold to satisfy a court decree in 1844 (after he had paid the then-princely sum of $2400 for it six years earlier). Most likely he borrowed money on it and couldn't pay, but we'll see.
Actually I still need that road trip, because the underlying court records -- which hopefully will explain how he got into this fix -- were not filmed, and due to the current Microfilmpocalypse may never be. But now I can zero in on them instead. Jefferson, Ohio, is nice in the summer.
www.flickr.com/photos/75905404@N00/1317676029
3 comments:
Thank you--this is a super idea. Sometimes I forget about all the valuable records hidden in plain sight. But sometimes we just have to take that road trip anyway!
The catalog has become my first place to look and I can always hope the film has been digitized and able to be viewed at home. But if not, my local FHC is open 4 days a week and only 15 minutes away. Road trips are now for counties that have few records ever filmed. But even if the county was well-filmed, there will always be other obscure records to find in local historical societies and archives. Besides, who doesn't like a road trip.
It is not likely that FS.org will return to myriad courthouses to digitize records that were not microfilmed by GSU on first pass, so many years ago.
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