Basic Genealogy Part 7: Using Court Records to Reveal Your Family History 

Court records are my absolute favorite type of record! It really is the meat and potatoes of your ancestors lives, and if you do the further research on their FAN Club, you get the gravy on top. For example, my 5x great grandfather built grist mills (which I found out through court records, otherwise, all I knew is he fought in the was of 1812 and died in 1824). He took a man that owed him around $200 and was refusing to pay him to the superior court. A couple days before the note was due, the man's brother, along with his friend and constable, went to his house, forcefully drug him out, beat him, took him to the local Justice of Peace, and had him falsely imprisoned. My great grandfather took both brothers to court, in two different cases, one for false imprisonment, the other for the debt of the mill. For whatever reason, the false imprisonment case was dropped. That was all in 1819, my grandfather died young, in 1824, leaving behind 2 girls and a pregnant wife (which created a whole ripple effect that would effect the family for the next 100 years). At his death, a family friend served as his Administrator and had the courts force the brother who beat my grandfather to sell his now deceased brother's land, which he now owned (the land with the mill on it), because the mill owner never paid my grandfather. The Administrator actually bought the property because it sold so low (500 acres with a mill sold for $16.12, which makes no sense to me), which wouldn't make up the debt, so he turned around and sold it for $50. Whether he paid my grandfather's widow that money, I dont know. But some years later that Administrator became a Justice of Peace. The sheriff during the time of my grandfathers whole mess, who was real buddy buddy with the constable and the 2 Brothers (they were all neighbors and I'm pretty sure were all intermarried), hauled a man into the superior Court because he didnt agree with a ruling made by the Administrator as a Justice of Peace. The Administrator was called into court to give a statement on his ruling and boy, it looked like he had had more than enough of the sheriff and his little band of merry thugs. He called the sheriff a cheat, liar, and rascal who openly swindles people and added that the case should go against the sheriff. So, I guess he got his day in court to openly speak his mind about the corruption taking place in that part of the county.. I do find it interesting that right before this case took place the Administrator was hauled into court on Adultery charges with a neighboring woman, Im sure the sheriff with the chip on his shoulder had nothing to do with that 🙄 Court records really show how families grow and how they became divided. People are forced to take sides, people are forced together on common ground and form relationships from those bonds, then people start to marry.. If yall aren't looking into court records, yall are missing out!

Is it possible that a circuit court record on microfiche at the Missouri State Archives might be complete, but if you went to the actual circuit course there might be more in the file? Also, with regards to Supreme Court records, the Missouri Archives on-line database is not complete. Just because you don't find your ancestor's case on the database doesn't mean it isn't there. Contact the archives and they will look up the case for you. Many of these Supreme records are not available for the us genealogists to touch and the State Archives has to send them to their lab to be unfolded and photographed. It can take 3 or 4 weeks to get them. Lastly, they can also look up pardons by a governor as well.