Dear Mount Vernon and Lawrence County, I visited your area the 15th. of Aug., and was treated nicely, and everyone was helpful. I was dis-appointed the library was closed on Tue's and Historical Socy. is open only on Sunday, and as i'm disabled and can't go to get my mail(have to ask others to do it) I wonder if there is some way I can e-mail both places? I am sorry to say that I found no leads on anc. in Probate, nor deeds. They were busy with a trial in district court, but I was let into the records vault. Your early County Records, Starting with the letter A to I have no index, and are filed by date only, making it necessary to read all 9 books to search for info on anc. because no one searching would know if or when, their anc might have info in the Clerk of the Dist. Court or not. Of course I couldn't read all 9 books. I'm not complaining, i'm bringing it up in case some local club is looking for a project. And Book "A" starts with year 1858, so there must be more records, not filled. If any body has a chance to be in the Dept. Of Deeds, Tell both of the people who work there, Way to go and a at-a-boy in dealing with us Genealogist. Especially the Old gentleman who is with the Historical Socy. and works there also. Yours truly, Carl Coffman,b.1933 ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

Carl, I am so sorry to hear that no one was able to help you in your search. There actually is an index -- but unless your ancestor was either the prosecutor or the defendant the name will not be listed on the index. Witness and other participants in criminal and civil actions are named only in the documents. The circuit court books do begin in 1845--however the earliest documents I found in the files were dated around 1857 and 1858. Older documents are either terribly misfiled or were lost or destroyed. I have learned that since copiers weren't around, many documents were taken from the court house by attornies or sent with change of venue cases to other courts. Many times the clerk did actually handwrite copies, but evidently there was a widespread tendency to release the original documents. I spent about a year running back and forth to Mt. Vernon to transcribe the existing documents from file boxes 1,2 and 3 which included years 1858-1868. These are the ones included in the book "View From the Courthouse" which Ross mentioned in an earlier message. I have checked every spelling and mispelling of Coffman/Hoffman/Kaufman etc. and found none listed in those documents. All I can say at the time, is that I will keep my eyes open for your ancestor and will certainly post anything that I run across. I don't make it down to Mt. Vernon very often now -- my car is in about the same condition you are in -- and I don't trust it out on the road!! Judy ----- Original Message ----- From: Carl Coffman <carl_coffman@hotmail.com> To: <MOLAWREN-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 6:40 AM Subject: [MOLAWREN-L] Visit > Dear Mount Vernon and Lawrence County, > I visited your area the 15th. of Aug., and was treated nicely, and > everyone was helpful. I was dis-appointed the library was closed on Tue's > and Historical Socy. is open only on Sunday, and as i'm disabled and can't > go to get my mail(have to ask others to do it) I wonder if there is some way > I can e-mail both places? > I am sorry to say that I found no leads on anc. in Probate, nor deeds. > They were busy with a trial in district court, but I was let into the > records vault. Your early County Records, Starting with the letter A to I > have no index, and are filed by date only, making it necessary to read all 9 > books to search for info on anc. because no one searching would know if or > when, their anc might have info in the Clerk of the Dist. Court or not. Of > course I couldn't read all 9 books. I'm not complaining, > i'm bringing it up in case some local club is looking for a project. And > Book "A" starts with year 1858, so there must be more records, not filled. > If any body has a chance to be in the Dept. Of Deeds, Tell both of the > people who work there, Way to go and a at-a-boy in dealing with us > Genealogist. Especially the Old gentleman who is with the Historical Socy. > and works there also. Yours truly, > Carl Coffman,b.1933 > > ________________________________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com