Courthouse records.

This page will link to transcriptions of courthouse records-- deeds, marriage licenses, birth records, death records, etc.-- concerning family members.

You can help!

In the 1930's, courthouse records for many counties across the country were transcribed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). While they don't cover real estate transfers, they do usually cover birth records, marriage records, and death records from the time the county started recording the data. These WPA indexes can be found in many county libraries, state historical libraries, and county or state genealogical libraries. If you live in an area with Slaven(s), Slavin, etc., records in the WPA index, won't you please transcribe them for the site, or at least photocopy the proper page(s) and mail them to me? Thanks!

ARIZONA

Arizona death records, 1878-1955.

ILLINOIS

Illinois marriage records, 1763-1900.

INDIANA

Indiana marriage records before 1850.

Miscellaneous Indiana court records before 1850.

Benton County WPA records.

Clay County WPA records.

Clinton County WPA records.

Daviess County WPA records.

Gibson County marriage records.

Hendricks County deed records.

Johnson County WPA records.

Lake County WPA records.

Montgomery County records.

Putnam County deed records.

Putnam County tax records.

Putnam County WPA records.

Parke County WPA records.

Tippecanoe County records.

Vigo County WPA records.

IOWA

Guthrie County vital records.

Wapello County deed records.

Wapello County vital records.

Wayne County deed and mortgage records.

MISSOURI

Missouri births and deaths. Miscellaneous records, mostly from the 1880's and 90's.

Additional Missouri deaths. Death certificates, 1910-55.

Audrain County marriage records Thanks to Ray Slavens.

Montgomery County marriage records Thanks to Ray Slavens.

Lincoln County marriage records Thanks to Ray Slavens.

Lincoln County probate records Thanks to Ray Slavens.

Boone County marriage records

Cooper County marriage records

Crawford County marriages.

Dallas County marriages.

Miller County marriage records

NORTH CAROLINA

Early North Carolina Records. Pre-1850 North Carolina records gleaned from several sources.

Early North Carolina Wills and Probate. Wills and probate information for the Eslaven/Slaven family.

Early North Carolina Deeds. Deed transcriptions, mostly for the Eslaven/Slaven family.

ORIGINAL LAND ENTRIES

Arkansas original land entries.

California original land entries.

Indiana original land entries.

MISCELLANEOUS RECORDS

Early Kentucky Marriage Records. Pre-1850 Kentucky marriage records.

Early Georgia Records. Pre-1850 Georgia records gleaned from several sources.

Early Maury County, Tennessee Records.

Early Spotsylvania County, Virginia Records.

Early Garrard County, Kentucky Records.

John Slavin deeds.
James Guthrie shared these scans of two early Virginia deeds relating to John Slavin. The first is believed to be the original land patent from King George III to James Morrow. This land, in Botetourt County, Virginia, was sold by Morrow to John Slavin in November 1777, and it's though that the deed was passed along to the Slavin family. The second is a grant from Governor Randolph to John Slavin(s) for land on a branch of the Jackson River in Augusta County. Jim's father had negative photostats of the original documents, and Jim's son-in-law scanned and reversed the image to produce these positive images.
Since documents are hard to read online when they're too small, we present each grant in two sizes-- a smaller jpg (322k and 451k) and a larger png (20-26MB). If you're on a slow internet connection you'll want to stick with the smaller scans.
Smaller 1770 image.   Larger 1770 image.
Smaller 1783 image.   Larger 1783 image.  

Early Virginia Deed Records.Link to the Library of Virginia search page. Search on the various spellings-- Slaven, Slavens, Slavin, etc.-- to find early deeds in Virginia and other information, such as a scan of a photostat of a page from the John of Highland County family Bible. Often scans of the documents are available for viewing or downloading. Just a hint-- on my desktop PC, the URL returned by search won't open when clicked because it will have a description after the link that browser is trying to make a part of the link (i.e. "Report Home Page") so I have to cut and paste it into a browser window without the extra words. But the links work fine on my laptop; both run the same version of Explorer and Windows XP. Ain't Microsoft grand? Thanks to Mary for passing along the link.

Daniel Slavens deed. Transcription of a deed transferring land in Bath County, Virginia, from Daniel Slavens to James Stephenson. Note the legal description of land-- is it any wonder the metes and bounds method, used here, was replaced by the township method. Also note the date of survey (hmm, according to the web, even with the change to the Gregorian calendar in 1752, there was never a 30th of February in the United States. Follow this link for a scan showing a portion of the original document. Thanks to Kathy Steffey for contributing the scans!

1798 Greene County, Tennessee tax list. The Rootsweb page is gone, but here's another site with the list, showing Daniel and William Slavens on the taxable property list of Captain James Guthrie's Company for 1798.

Montgomery County, Kentucky Records. Excerpts from 1800-1831 tax books, showing entries for Isaiah Slavens, and his sons as they came of age.

Bath County, Kentucky Tax Records. Excerpts from 1800-1831 tax books, showing entries for Isaiah Slavens, and his sons as they came of age.

McCreary County, Kentucky Records. Just a couple death records at the moment; who wants to contribute transcripts of other records from this "Slaven heavy" county?

Early Arkansas Marriage Records.

California Death Records, 1905-1929. I'll be filling in the "Place of Death" column as soon as I can find someone with the key for the codes in the document!

Early Tennessee Records. Pre-1850 Tennessee records gleaned from several sources.

1787 Virginia Personal Property Tax List.

West Virginia Marriages, 1863-1900.

New Jersey Marriages, 1848-1867.

John Slaven guardianship. Transcription of a guardianship petition by Ann Cassidy of Walnut Township, Polk County, Iowa, for her son John Slaven. According to the petition, John was the son of Charles Slaven of St. Joseph, Missouri, who died circa 1862. Anyone know who Charles's parents were?
Update: We still don't know who Charles's parents were, but I stumbled on a little more information on Charles: he enlisted in the 25th regiment of the Enlisted Missouri Militia on August 9, 1862, at St. Joseph, Missouri, and died October 9, 1862.

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