FamilySearch has started a project to start indexing hand-written documents. This link will take you to the search page. I suggest opening the “More Options” tab to be able to search a name as well as keywords. Currently they have only indexed deeds and probate records. I would suspect they will be adding court records in the future. That would help you to find your relatives in the court records that they filmed many years ago. It would find both criminal records and civil cases. Wouldn’t be interesting to even find a relative in one of those civil cases?
My first look at Court records was about 30 years ago when I was in the Allegany County Clerk’s office and found a few volumes of court records sitting on open shelves. I thumbed through them and found a reference of my ancestor, John Nicholson, as being a deputy sheriff. I forgot to write down the volume and page number. On a return visit about 15 years ago I looked for John in the court records and failed. Hopefully when those records get indexed by FamilySearch I will be able to find John in the court records again to prove that I wasn’t mistaken by what I had found so many years ago.
I have already mentioned that there aren’t any court records of Monroe County on FamilySearch except an index to Miscellaneous (Court) records. I did investigate some other County court records from around western New York. I looked at Allegany (because of above), Ontario, Livingston, Steuben, Wayne, and Genesee counties. Genesee Co. didn’t have any court records filmed.
The first three courts were early courts that merged and/or disappeared before 1900.
Court of General Sessions
This court had jurisdiction over felonies like assault, fraud, and robbery. This court was supposedly eliminated in 1847. Available on FamilySearch are only records from Ontario County from 1794 to 1850.
Court of Common Pleas
This court settled civil cases. According to data on a few websites this court was eliminated in 1847 for all counties except New York County (NYC). But note that some of these counties have records on FamilySearch that go beyond that date:
- Ontario County; 1794 – 1853
- Allegany County; 1807 – 1850
- Livingston County; 1821 – 1910
Court of Oyer and Terminer
This is a court that you didn’t want to end up in. It supposedly handled felony cases that were punishable by life imprisonment or death. I did notice some cases with smaller penalties in cases that I looked at. These counties have records of this court on FamilySearch:
- Ontario County; 1793 – 1866
- Livingston County; 1840-1 & 1859-71
- Allegany County; 1815 – 1895
Supreme Court
This is a current court that handles civil cases and misdemeanors. FamilySearch only has filmed records for Wayne County (1836 – 1905) and Allegany County (1826 – 1867).
County Court
This court currently has jurisdiction over felonies and civil cases of high dollar amounts. In the past it handled many other kinds of cases. These counties have records of this court on FamilySearch:
- Ontario County; 1847 – 1916
- Steuben County; 1847 – 1904
- Allegany County; 1850 – 1903
- Wayne County; 1847 – 1875 and 1881 – 1884
It would be great if there were more court records that had gotten filmed over the years. Although criminal cases would be the most desired, those civil cases where one person is suing another are also interesting. I did find my ancestor, Dewitt C. Halsey, mentioned in court records of Steuben County. He was arrested in 1852 for grand larceny. He failed to show up for his trial but the Judge also failed to write down his sentence in the court records.
The more I looked at the early court records, I could see that you would never know which court would handle what kind of a case. You would have to look at all available records. Most important is that none of the court records have the detailed testimony that you would think that they would have. They are just a summary of the case.