Records of the courts can consist of data of great interest to those researching property history. They just might offer up some useful data about your house or the previous homeowners of the property. If you come over any references to court cases applicable to your property while researching deeds, newspapers or other documents write down any dates, names, court case numbers, etc. In many states, these records give more collective history than a deed crusade offers. In some cases the records may even explicate such things as a property division that affects your house. For example, if the heirs to an estate could not agree on how the property would be divided, there might have been a court action to partition the estate among the heirs. Disputes over property should be investigated, as they may consist of data about earlier members of the house or owners of the property in question.
The majority of court cases are filed at the county level, so a good beginning point is to begin with your local county courthouse. Most court records have not been placed online yet, but it is always worth doing a quick Internet crusade first just in case. You probably will need to make a trip to the justice building though. Commonly records have two indexes, an index to plaintiffs (those who bring the case to court) and an index to defendants (those who are being brought to court). Indexing systems vary, but Commonly if there are many plaintiffs or many defendants, the case appears in each index only once. Go through the plaintiff and defendant indexes, seeing for the names of your property owners. If you find any matches, copy down the reference number, and ask the person at the desk to bring you the acceptable court records. You just might find new names to research in your quest to build your house's house tree.
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