Connecticut Government records cover a broad range of genealogy subject areas that can help you as part of your research, such as land ownership, courts, taxes, and naturalization’s. Given that Connecticut court records cover such a wide selection of topics, they could aid you in many different ways. As an example, they could aid you in finding ancestors’ residences, identify occupations, locate financial information, determine citizenship status, or shed light on relationships between individuals. The whole thing relies upon on the type of court records that the ancestors” names show up in. For Definitions of all court terms see the Genealogy Encyclopedia.
Connecticut Courthouse records change extensively from county to county in both level of quality and volume. You will find different kinds of court records that are most likely to possess information related for your genealogical research below.
- Inventory of the town and city archives of Connecticut. : Fairfield County
- Inventory of the town and city archives of Connecticut.
- The public records of the colony of Connecticut
- Connecticut City Directories This database is a collection of city directories for various years and cities in Connecticut. Generally a city directory will contain an alphabetical list of its citizens, listing the names of the heads of households, their addresses, and occupational information. Sometimes the wife’s name will be listed in parentheses or italics following the husband’s. Often, dates of deaths of individuals listed in the previous year’s directory are listed as well as the names of partners of firms, and when possible, the forwarding addresses or post offices of people who moved to another town. In addition to the alphabetical portion, a city directory may also contain a business directory, street directory, governmental directory, and listings of town officers, schools, societies, churches, post offices, and other miscellaneous matters of general and local interest.
Connecticut Court Records
Record centralization makes it east to research Connecticut state court records. The Connecticut State Library holds many of them. However, research can still be challenging because there are so many different types of court records and documents, including apprenticeships, debts, misdemeanors and warrants.
Until the early 1800s, the justice of the peace held the local-level legal responsibilities. The Connecticut State Library has many of those records on file, although some have not survived.
The particular court was the first legal level before counties were created.
The court of assistants and the trial court came into existence between 1665 and 1711. The former handled divorces, appeals from lower courts and criminal cases. The superior court replaced the court of assistants in 1711. The Connecticut State Library has many of the records for the court of assistants on file.
County designations determine superior court districts. It’s important to research parent counties when looking for early records. The Connecticut State Library is home to most of the available superior court records through the mid-1900s.
County courts presided over any matters where superior courts didn’t have jurisdiction. County courts were sometimes called common please courts or prerogative courts. The county court existed from 1666 to 1855. The Connecticut State Library holds most records for the county court system.
When matters couldn’t be handled by a justice of the peace or the superior courts, those matters were handled by the courts of common please. Then, in 1961, the justice court system was dissolved, the district courts came into being and the county superior courts and state supreme court systems were left in place, creating Connecticut’s modern court system. See Also Research In Court Records.
- U.S. Circuit Court Criminal Case Files, 1790-1871 (search.ancestry.com)
- Connecticut Court Record Books (amazon.com)
Connecticut Land Records
As with the rest of New England, legally, England was considered the owner of all Connecticut lands. The settlements didn’t get the rights to their own land until almost 30 years after the first Connecticut settlements were created. That happened when a royal charter was established, giving those rights to the settlers. That charter caused the creation of the United Commonwealth of Connecticut, which was a merging between the Connecticut and New Haven colonies. Before 1662, settlers usually acquired land from the Native Americans in the area.
In 1639, the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were established. This constitution of sorts stated that all land transactions had to be recorded within the records for each town. The colony was originally presided over by the Connecticut General Court, which later became the Connecticut General Assembly. It put town proprietors in charge of dividing and selling the lands which they controlled. The town clerk recorded each registered deed as land changed hands.
Each deed book usually has an individual index. Comprehensive grantee and grantor indexes are generally held by each town clerk’s office. The FHL and its branches, as well as the Connecticut State Library have all of the deed books up until around 1900 on microfilm. However, there is no statewide deed in