DearMYRTLE - Check the courthouse again: Great Falls Montana, case in point

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Check the courthouse again: Great Falls Montana, case in point

DearREADERS,
Have you ever been the recipient of a reply from a distant courthouse stating "we don't have those old records anymore" ?

CHECK the courthouse again and again. Maybe the records have been misplaced. Or perhaps the records have been inventoried for a couple of decades or even half a century. Case in point: look what was JUST ANNOUNCED for Cascade County, Montana in the GREAT FALLS TRIBUNE ONLINE today! <sigh>

Records get a good sorting
By KIM SKORNOGOSKI
Tribune Staff Writer
Originally published November 28, 2005

"For the volunteers with the Great Falls Genealogy Society, the mustier and dustier the better.

The group got what they wanted when they agreed to tackle sorting through the mounds of county documents stored in courthouse and county annex basements, the old and new jails and three semi-trailers.

Since beginning the project in spring 2004, as many as seven volunteers at a time logged more than 1,100 hours indexing, organizing and moving records dating back to the birth of Cascade County in 1888."

To read more about 150 marriage entry books (!!), teacher's reports and dancing licenses found stuffed haphazardly in drawers and cabinets by reading the entire article:
http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051128/NEWS01/511280307/1002

No wonder we can't find anything. Staffing problems being what they are, the current workload of any courthouse takes precedence over those old records. In the case of Manatee County Florida, much had been moved to an annex, known as the historical records library. It wasn't fully inventoried until our local genealogy society completed the task in 1991.

Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt :)
DearMYRTLE,
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