On Monday I did an old-fashioned thing: I made a trip to a county court house for genealogical research. The only N.H. county the NEHGS library doesn't have either deeds or probate for is Strafford County from 1771 on. Naturally, my family comes almost exclusively from there. The article on which I'm presently working is about the Clark family from Durham, so I needed to see what was hidden up there. It was worth it on two counts. There was indeed a few deeds that were important. One was dated 1764 and not recorded until 1799. This is why you need to do this type of research. The other deeds were merely dotting my "i's" and crossing my "t's," but that's important too.
The other thing that was wonderful is I got see the "new" three volumes of Dover Town Records. The Dover Town Hall burned in the 1920s. The records were all saved and most were stored in the town library. Eleven volumes were returned to the new Town Hall. During the depression, the WPA indexed them and they've been microfilmed. I've used them exclusively. As it turns out, three volumes were separated from the rest and ended up in private hands. They were purchased by Dover this year. The Town Clerk allowed me to inspect them and they go back to the 17th century! The volume I saw had the list of earmarks and town grants of land in 1693/4. These volumes will be restored and protected professionally this spring and afterwards will be digitized and put on the Internet. I'm looking forward to that. No vital records seem to be there, but the records include phrases like "land laid out to Richard Otis, deceased." So there is new information there.
Greetings, cousin.
Exciting stuff about Dover. Thanks for sharing.
I been enjoying your blog tremendously since stumbling upon it this year and I learn a great deal from your posts. It is also a great way for me to keep up-to-date on some of our shared ancestry. I appreciate your efforts more than I can say.
Merry Christmas. I hope I bump into you in Boston one of these days. It's been a while...
Regards,
Ray
Posted by: Ray Johnson | 12/16/2009 at 07:38 PM