My friends - Today, we are beginning a new series which will deal with what are termed "Commonwealth Cases" in McCracken County. These are criminal court cases in which the Commonwealth of Kentucky acted as prosecutor. The case would be styled, for example, as "Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. John Smith". The names in the listing below are the defendants in these cases in McCracken County, as taken from the docket index. Unfortunately, other than the year in which the case was brought, there is no other information in the index as to what the charge may have been, or anything further concerning the case. As a result, I have *no* further information beyond what is shown below. Nevertheless, this sort of information is useful in some situations in placing an individual between census years. If you see a name in which you have an interest and would like to obtain the case file connected with that individual, and which will contain the petition, subpoenas, verdict, and often some depositions, the Kentucky Department for Libraries & Archives is the repository which holds these case files for McCracken County in this period. Criminal case files are somewhat less likely to contain family information than are civil case files, but one never knows what may appear in one of these files. I once examined such a file that came out of Fulton County, in which am an was charged with polygamy. He had three wives - one in Fulton Co., one in Cairo, IL and another in Massac Co. IL. The file contained the love letters he had written all three of them, the dates of marriages for each, the names and dates of birth of all of his children by the three wives, the maiden names of the wives and who their parents were, as well as other information on the husband's family. That was an unusual case, of course, but it does show what can sometimes be found in these criminal case files. Feel free to contact me off list if there are questions about accessing the case files. Tomorrow, we will move to Graves County. -B +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ McCracken County - Commonwealth Court Cases - 1836 - Part 1 [et al. = "and others"] Commonwealth of Kentucky vs.: A. Wilson et al. Gustavus A. Garrett William Gore John Gill Eppes Allen John Adams Richard Allen John Beck (2 cases) John Beck, Sr. Martin B. Brin John Betts (2 cases) Luke Bryant Silas F. Barnes John Beck, Jr. William Breton et al. Angeline Clay William Carvell A. Crump James Benson C. Cook, et al. Armistead Crump Samuel Caruthers E. Capas John Crice William & Harriett Creason Jesse Doyle W.C.Delahay John Carrigan, et al. Joseph Daniel William Doolen James Edwards, et al. Robert Ewing (4 cases) ~to be continued~ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++