 |
Research in Illinois Court Records
Illinois Court records address a wide selection of genealogy subject areas that may aid you with your research, including land ownership, courts, taxes, and naturalizations. Given that Illinois court records cover a wide range of topics, they can help you in many various ways. For instance, they will often allow you to find ancestors' residences, identify occupations, identify financial information, identify citizenship status, or clarify relationships between people. It all will depend on on what type of court records that your particular ancestors" names can be found in. For Definitions of all court trems see the Genealogy Encyclopedia.
Illinois County records can vary greatly from county to county in both level of quality and quantity. You will find four forms of court records that are most likely to have details relevant for your genealogical research.
Virtually all courts in America are generally courts of record that is they are required by law to maintain a record of their proceedings. Illinois courts are the same. Often these days very few people escape mention within a court room records ultimately during their life as witnesses, litigants, jurors, appointees to office or as petition signatories. Nonetheless Americans of a couple of generations ago also expected to participate in local court proceedings as long as they were in session. It must have been a civic duty and then they could be fined if they couldn't attend. Illinois court files represent U.S. history. Hidden away in courthouses together with archives all over the place are the desires and frustrations of lots of citizens. The prospects are good that your particular ancestors have left a concise record of at least some areas of life in a court room records.
The earliest court records for Illinois counties created after 1818 are invariably records of the circuit court. Chancery, civil, and criminal cases are usually filed together at first.” For counties created during the territorial period, the following gives the type of their earliest court: St. Clair: Court of the District of Cahokia; Randolph: French Provincial Council; Madison, Gallatin, and Johnson: court of common pleas; Edwards, White, Jackson, Pope, Monroe, Crawford, and Bond: county court; Franklin, Union and Washington: justices' court. Jackson, Cook and Franklin counties lost early court records in fires.
- See Also Research In Court Records
- Illinois Servitude and Emancipation Records, 1720-1865 (search.ancestry.com)
- Slavery petitions and papers (search.ancestry.com)
- History of the Circuit Court/Circuit Clerk (cyberdriveillinois.com)
- The laws of the Northwest Territory, 1788-1800 (search.ancestry.com)
- Illinois Court Record Books (amazon.com)
The Treasurer maintains tax records from the early years and makes them available to the public. The Treasurer also receives and records inheritance tax. Original and microfilmed tax records at Illinois Regional Archives Depositories include taxable land lists, assessors books, railroad tax books, road tax records, and collectors books, the earliest record dated 1817. Other county tax records are located in county seats.
- See Also Research In Tax Records
- Illinois Tax Record Books (amazon.com)
