X-Message: #1 Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 08:07:02 EDT From: SmoketownUniv@aol.com To: md-fred-gen-d@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <132.13133476.2a9e16e6@aol.com> Subject: Equity Records and other resources Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" MIME-Version: 1.0 >Hello all, >I have only been doing genealogy for about a year and I've used the usual >resources such as Church Records, Estate and Land Records, Marrage Records, >but I didn't know until that Equity Records are a possible source of valuable >information. Can anyone tell me more about this? Are there other types of >local records that I may have over looked. Cindy H. Cindy, I am not sure where in MD you are looking, I can only tell you my own experience in Frederick. The Frederick Equity Records are at Maryland State Archives (MSA). But at the Frederick Courthouse is a list of the equity cases of a certain person, or where his/her name appears, in my case Patrick O'Neill (1783-1855). I paid someone in Frederick to get them for me from the courthouse; she typed the list up. The principal players are named. There were about seven. They have a reference number to the number at MSA. The short form told me pretty much what was going on. I THINK they are usually legal battles about land, etc., mine were. I descend from Patrick's first wife, the parties in the equity cases involve his second wife, a wealthy widow who brought land to the marriage...and so children from her first marriage trying to get this land back. There was even one where the second wife was "vs" Patrick. The problem is cost. The man I dealt with at MSA told me he always warns people what they can be getting into. Look at their prices on Web site per page...an equity case can go on and on and on. He said when he found something that was very long, he would call people to let them know, but I don't know if all his colleagues do that. There was one I was interested in seeing, but it was about 150 pages long, I didn't get it because of cost. Now in my case, the cases involved people from whom I did not descend...the second wife. In yours it might be completely different. Patrick left no will, have you gotten a will? I got account books which is what you get when there is no will. Again, I paid someone in Frederick to get them for me at the Court House. Wills of a certain time frame are at LDS on microfilm, Patrick died after that date of course. Reference to the Will Index was just given on here recently. Other that I got was naturalization, again money, again at MSA. And the cemetery, the caretaker at St John's in Frederick took pictures for me...but basically he too admits their records are terrible. Other than that, there were many entries about Patrick in books...but I could not get them on interlibrary loan. There are volunteers who will do look-ups. I was lucky enough to have a friend in Salt Lake, where the books were, who was able to copy pages for me. Feel free to write me directly. I don't know how places other than Frederick work. Even the professionals were confused on what was where, as the process of transferring materials from Frederick to MSA was still ongoing. Barbara Ford Providence RI