Experienced genealogists know: dig around long enough in a courthouse and finding gold is the result—nuggets of family history, showing an ancestor on a jury, relationships in a will, testimony in a criminal or civil trial. The problem is courthouses have so much to sort through, a lot of ore must be sifted to find this gold. For Essex County Massachusetts in the 1600s, the process is somewhat easier.
Transcription of Essex County Quarterly Court Records
Unlike vital records, old court records are usually un-indexed and poorly organized, tucked in folios or laid in boxes. On occasion old sheets may have been microfilmed, but are almost never indexed. Looking for those few pieces of paper or microfilm frames that contain valuable family history requires creation of a large, virtual slag heap. Surely in this Internet age there’s a better way.
For those researching ancestors in Essex County, Massachusetts, there is, thanks to the University of Virginia and their on-line center for studies of the Salem Witch Trials. But the story actually begins a hundred years ago.
A data miner named Harriet S. Tapley, in the early 20th Century, painstakingly transcribed sheets and sheets of Essex County Quarterly Court papers. Not content to just look at the main folios that contained the clerk’s records, Tapley also went through the larger files of diverse documents, and even into the waste books. Tapley’s transcriptions were taken by George Francis Dow and published between 1911 and 1920 in eight volumes, titled Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts. In 1975 a ninth volume was added. The years covered are 1636 to 1686. With records this old some gaps can be expected (such as for courts held at Ipswich before 1643), but they are amazingly complete and informative.
Typical Contents of the Essex County Quarterly Court Record Transcriptions
Originally published by the Essex Institute, with only 300 hundred copies made, the books are available in larger genealogy libraries across the nation. Some of the volumes are also available in modern reprints. Their value as sources for genealogy and family history has been demonstrated over many years. The original files are the property of the State of Massachusetts, but are held at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem.
Virtually any matter brought before the quarterly courts at Salem, Ipswich, Hampton, and Salisbury are described in two parts. “Above the line”—that is, in one typeface—is a summary of the case and sometimes its disposition, taken from the seventeen volumes of court clerks’ records. “Below the line”—in a slightly different typeface, are summaries of details given in a “large collection of original papers consisting of presentments, depositions upon almost every conceivable subject, correspondence and documents of greatly varied character, deeds, wills, inventories of estates, contracts, attested copies of records, papers connected with the witchcraft trials, apprentices' indentures, inquests, writs, executions, and papers of every kind connected with the various cases.” For example, here is a record in Volume 8 of a case brought before the Salem court in March, 1681/82 (see Volume 8, page 233).
[above the line]
The verdict of the jury of inquest upon the death of Thomas Bearns was brought into court.
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[below the line]
Return of a jury of inquest, Moses Mavericke, Samll. Ward, Thomas Pittman, Ambros Gall, Mathew Clark, John Merrett, George Oake, Ephraim Sandin, William Beckly, James Stillson, Henerie Curtis and John Curtis, dated Marblehead, Oct. 7, 1681, summoned by Benjeman Gall, constable, upon the untimely death of Thomas Baerns, that he fell out of a boat into the sea, and not being able to swim ashore, was drowned.
This provides good information about the people involved. Descendants can place their ancestors in a specific place at a specific time doing specific things. The records provide insight into the character of the people by the fact that they were chosen for this important assignment. A descendant of Thomas Bearns learns how he died, and approximately when. Such details are repeated for many people in the 3,900 pages of the nine volumes.
Value of the Transcriptions for Genealogy Research
As Dow states in the introduction, “The records and files are here printed in abstract form, free of needless verbiage, but every essential particular is retained so that the historian, genealogist and sociologist may be assured that nothing of value has been omitted.” In addition to the summaries of criminal and civil cases, the books include: summary of many estates and inventories; guardianship issues; some actions by town selectmen; vital records from certain towns for certain years; and much more. Also, for an ancestor whose birth was never recorded at church or town, their testimony giving their age may be the only information available to help hone in on their date of birth.
Genealogists tracing family roots in 1600s Essex County, Massachusetts are well advised to find these books and use them. Scanned images are available at the web site of the University of Virginia, and some are available through Google Books.
David A. Todd - David Todd is a civil engineer, a genealogist, a citizen concerned with the environment, and a writer by passion.
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