Subj: Kentucky Research EXPERT GENEALOGY Editor: Jeannette Holland Austin Series: Research Subject: Kentucky Date: September 29, 1999 Any good genealogical research includes doing a thorough job in county court house records. This includes deeds, wills, administrations, marriages, tax digests, etc. Unfortunately, not all human transactions were recorded. Take, for example, deeds. A person could purchase some land, but did not have to record it in the Superior Court Records. That is why the tax digests take up the slack ... help determine what years our ancestor lived in the area, as well as names of adjoining neighbors and waterways. Too, local ministers did not always record marriage ceremonies with the clerk of the court. One tip in researching marriages. The license to get married and the actual marriage ceremony frequently appear on one format, with the date of the license being at the top, and the date of the actual ceremony at the bottom. For those of you who do research in family history centers, you will notice on the IGI (International Genealogical Index) that there are frequently two marriage dates in the same county for the same person. One of them is the date of the license - one of them is the actual date the ceremony occurred. And the answer here is "human error". Thus, the need to not always take someone's word for a record, but rather personally check the sources. The two marriage books listed below are excellent tools for locating ancestors in Kentucky, the first book beginning in 1797, and are temporarily being sold at very low prices. Wills are documents which bequeath property, both real and personal, to family members and friends. Simply because a Last Will and Testament is located, does not mean that it qualified for probate. One can discern that it did or did not by noticing whether an Executor or Administrator transacted the estate business. If it was an administrator, then the will was not probated. It is good news for the researcher when a person died intestate because (1) an administrator was appointed (2) inventory taken (3) sale conducted of the estate (4) receipts and vouchers provided by heirs and (5) Annual Returns made until the estate was fully administered (bills and heirs paid). A close examination of the final returns usually provide names of heirs. They may not be designated as heirs, therefore, one must notice the "amounts" which were disbursed because shares and disbursements to children are quite similar in dollar amount, although not exact. If there are minor children, then a search should be made of guardian bonds and returns. ==================