----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith McKain" <GeoSci64@comcast.net> To: "PENNA-Gen" <PENNSYLVANIA@rootsweb.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 19, 2010 9:50 AM Subject: [PA] Help with PA research Keith I can answer a couple of the questions below: > 1. An inability to locate Court Minutes. Those Minutes were the main > resource for southern research, of course, along with the census. You would have to go to the county courthouse in the county you are searching, simply ask any clerk there which office holds the old records. Some places have an archives building where older records are plced but most have available indexes to locate the record by. This type of research requires a visit unless you have exact dates and names, then some courthouses will copy records and mail them out to you for a fee. Most courthouse employees are very helpful if you call for information or visit, they don't expect us to know the terminology that well, they will know what you are looking for. > 3. An inability to locate online explanation of PA tax records, roughly > 1750-1850. For example, in Bedford County I find this among tax records: > "return of land", Best guess is that a return of land simply means that the record of the acreage owned by the taxed individual shows on that document. Some of the very early tax records are long gone though, the PA state Archives series is where a good deal of WPA copied old documents are for PA research. >and I have never before seen that designation. Also, what does it mean when the tax record reads "non-resident", yet the individual is being taxed, as I recall in Bedford. No resident landholders have a primary residence somewhere but have bought land elsewhere but do not live on that land. It may have improvements or may not, like if you live in Newark NJ and own a lot or house at the beach in North Carolina, you would not be a resident of North Carolina unless it is your primary home. > 4. What terminology does one use to obtain estates executors or > administrators annual returns done until estate probate is completed? The executors and/or administrators are usually stated in the probate or will somewhere. Again a copy or a look at the document should give you that information. Judy