The County Courthouse Book is a concise guide to county courthouses
and courthouse records. It is an important book because the genealogical
researcher needs a reliable guide to American county courthouses, the main
repositories of county records. To proceed in his investigations, the researcher
needs current addresses and phone numbers, information about the coverage and
availability of key courthouse records such as probate, land, naturalization,
and vital records, and timely advice on the whole range of services available at
the courthouse. Where available he will also need listings of current websites
and e-mail addresses.
He will also need to know whether search services are provided, the fees
involved, and whether there are alternative locations for the records. And if
he’s a diligent researcher, he’ll need to know something about the origins
of the county itself—names of parent counties, dates of formation, former
names, etc.
Such is the kind of guidebook required, and such is Elizabeth P. Bentley’s County
Courthouse Book, now in its third edition, the first edition to provide
websites and e-mail addresses. Besides its obvious genealogical uses, the County
Courthouse Book can also be used for land title searches, legal
investigations, questions of property rights and inheritance, and indeed
personal searches and investigations of all kinds. But it is the genealogist who
stands to benefit most from the book because it offers a concise guide to the
county courthouses and courthouse records which are the main focus of his
research.
This new 3rd edition of the County Courthouse Book is a complete
overhaul of the 2nd edition of 1995, and it is up-to-date and more useful than
ever.
EDITORIAL REVIEWS OF EARLIER EDITIONS
"...the County Courthouse Book is an extremely important research
aid, and it belongs in all genealogical libraries."--THE NEW YORK
GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD, Vol. 127, No. 1 (January 1996), p. 57.
"...provide[s] essential resource tools for genealogists and other
researchers...this book will be heavily used by myriad genealogists around the
world..."--LIBRARY JOURNAL (December 1995), p. 88.
"All serious genealogists will need to consult it frequently."--THE
AMERICAN GENEALOGIST, Vol. 66, No. 4 (October 1991).
Softcover, 322 pp., Published 2009. ISBN: 9780806317977
