Alice,

A couple of years ago I spent a couple of hours at the Powhatan County Courthouse on my way from Richmond to Charlottesville.   I have Baughs/Bentleys/Saunders/Wash/maybe Flemings and scores of allied and unknown wife lines there in what is now Powhatan.

While there I found a miscellaneous court record book, that early 1800s recorded [the essence] of a will in deed form (not in deed book) of a hitherto unknown son of Lipsomb Wash and Elizabeth Saunders, John L. (probably Lipscomb) Saunders, who died in Orange NC.  Lipscomb gave the two slaves involved to his two daughters, Caroline E., and Mariah Goode Wash.  While this isn't an earth shattering in terms of my direct lines, it IS important because it is possible that if I can find John L. Wash in Orange Co. NC, then maybe other neighbors relatives went there, and there may be more cousins giving things to my folks, and I can locate these unknown wives I have.

While I believe that this book has probably been filmed by the Family History Center folks in Utah, it does speak to checking the many miscellaneous books in courthouses I have noticed.  This book in question had wills and other misc items in it over a period of decades that it seems probably got tucked into corners and weren't recorded by clerks, maybe attic finds.

I think one of the examples of court records that weren't filmed by the Mormons are the chancery court records, which the LVA project is currently indexing and digitizing.  My personal estimation from having looked at the info on the LVA website is that they may have made a decision not to film them because so much of them is just debt settlements/business disputes.   But I could be wrong.  Theoretically, the results of chancery court decisions involving heirs/property etc., in intestate situations, should have been recorded in the court order books as well.

Best Regards,

Janet (Baugh) Hunter




Have any of you actually had the good luck to find a collection no one else seemed to know of? 

 

 


 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Janice <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Fri, May 21, 2010 1:08 am
Subject: [VA-ROOTS] Less well-known documents


Earlier Fern mentioned that occasionally, pockets of information could be found at courthouses that possibly existed nowhere else. 
 
I've always wanted to believe it could happen but was afraid it was an urban myth. 
 
Have any of you actually had the good luck to find a collection no one else seemed to know of? 
 
Alice A. 
 
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