More than 8,000 Hillsborough County court records, spanning 1772 to 1799, have been abstracted for this index. The data are important not only for purposes of genealogical research and as a history of litigation, but also for the picture of the New England community, and its trades and commerce, which these records provide. The book is divided into several sections (Individuals, Institutions and Other Assorted Records, and Warnings Out); within each, records have been abstracted in index form, alphabetically by plaintiff name. The order of elements within these records is: plaintiff’s name, occupation/title and residence; defendant’s name, occupation/title and residence; document date; date of recording; cause of action; file number (a reference to the original archive); and notations. Not all records contain all this information. In some cases, when the record is of a judgment or court order, there is no plaintiff; thus, the indexed name is the first or only name given. The introductory material includes a brief glossary of titles, occupations and legal processes, to aid researchers unfamiliar with these terms; and the last section of the book is an index of buried surnames. The publication of this index will only enhance the accessibility of these court records, and hence their value. An index to “buried” names gives access to those people associated with the primary, alphabetized individual.
Pauline J. Oesterlin
(1996, 2008), 2014, 5½x8½, paper, alphabetical, index, 494 pp.
ISBN: 9780788404498
101-O0449
