Karon,
I paste below a copy of the newspaper article. Thanks very much for your
guidance regarding court contacts, etc. I'll be getting at it!!
Dave
Monroe County, Ohio digest of old newspapers
Sept. 28, 1853 - REWARD for relatives of John Catlett, aged 16, apprenticed
to John H. Goodhart of Calais.
In a message dated 1/17/2009 5:40:07 P.M. Central Standard Time,
tmg4me(a)comcast.net writes:
DAVIDHCOX(a)aol.com wrote:
William, John, Henry and Martha are enumerated in the 1850 census .
Williiam is in the Triplett household, John is in the Goodhart household
and
Henry
is in the Winemiller household. Martha Jane is married and
enumerated
as the
wife of Nathan Meeks.
I'll add the above to the summary, thanks!
I have suspected a connection with James but have not found any evidence.
I
believe James and his family continued to reside in Ohio. I have
not
gained
access to court records to explore guardianship papers. I have
unsuccessfully searched for newspaper stories through
Ancestry.com.
Using a
search
function I found an ad from the Goodharts seeking relatives of
their
"charge" John
Catlett. Your thoughts about searching court and newspaper records
may be
the routes to follow to unravel the mystery of the origin of these
children.
Ok, if they placed advertisements in the paper, then the court(s) probably
ordered it (following the law of Ohio, I suspect).
When or what year were these advertisements placed. That'll pinpoint the
time
of the incident, much closer than what we have now.
As for going to the court records. I can think of several avenues (one at a
time, of course).
The first is to write the courthouse of the county. Do those "ads" state
what
court jurisdiction (county, perhaps), say Guernsey or Monroe or other? In
your letter, state what you're looking for (names, dates or timeframe (narrow
it down as much as possible), ages of the child or children, and provide them
the names of the family/people whom you think gained custody/guardianship.
Provide a check to cover their expensives (minimum offer for photocopies,
plus
some jurisdictions may charge a small fee for their time). You coud inquire
online (via say, the Ohio State mailing list at Rootsweb) to see if other
researchers know what a specific county court charges in the way fees, their
policies, etc.
An alternative would be to try to locate microfilmed records through the LDS
Church (
www.familysearch.org); I believe they have an online catalog to their
holdings available. Once the county is known (or your best guess), look in
the catalog to see what court records have been microfilmed for that
locality. You'd be looking for orphan court records and/or guardianship
records. I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with Ohio's legal system, but each
state, I'm sure has some system in place to look out for the welfare of
children, even in the colonial days of our country.
Third option is to locate an onsite researcher for the county where you want
to search. You could try contacting the courthouse itself (letter or phone),
try contacting a genealogy or historical society for that vicinity for a list
of researchers.
When I was researching one of my other families in Ohio, I wrote directly to
the courthouse, identified myself, and provided them a small amount of
money.
I wasn't making much money at the time, but I provided them enough to cover
reasonable fees for non-certified copies (some courthouses charge separate
fees, depending on whether or not you want certified copies). The two
counties were Logan and Champaign. They bent over backwards for me as I
recall. I later visited the courts (post-1863 records) myself and viewed
birth, death, and marriage records myself, as well as deeds and/or probate
records. I don't remember specifically if I looked at guardianship records
for that family. I have looked at abstracted records from states like
Virginia. Also, the probate courts in some states handled the records for
orphans and widows. That may be the case in Ohio. (Someone on this list
may
have more specics related to Ohio's court systems.
There may also be some sites online that will give you specifics on the Ohio
courts and the courthouses, fees, hours, etc. I've not looked recently for
any particular site like that (Ohio or any other state or states), but would
certainly recommend one to you if I had the knowledge. And of course, since
there are others on the list, y'all may want to pool your sources and
possibly
share the incurred costs no matter which route you choose. (I'd be willing
to
chip in, so contact me offlist to let me know which route you dedide to take,
if any).
Yep, about James...one would suspect because of the same surname that there
would be a connection. However, just because the name's the same, as I keep
cautioning Diana, that doesn't mean they're related. James might've
migrated
from southeastern Virginian, whereas these kids were probably from
northwestern Virginia. And if related, the relationhsip may be rather
distant, say 3rd cousins. And if they were closely related, with James
(being
a relatively young man) at the time, might not have have had the means to
take
care of those kids. He may not have even known of their situation. Lots of
angles here to be considered and pondered. One thing to remember is back in
those days (early to mid 19th century) they didn't have TV, radio,
telephones,
or cell phones. News took a while to spread, whether it was on the
frontier,
or a more populous place like Baltimore or Boston.
-- Karon
"A genealogy compilation without sources might as well be fiction."
-- Karon M. Bosze, 26 Jan 2000
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