Some of the best records of our ancestors' lives come from those who got in trouble with the law and left a record in the courts.
In Georgia, the most serious crimes appear in the Superior Court records, but that is also where divorce records are found, and even things that were crimes in older days, such as henpecking. You never know what you might learn about your ancestors.
The drawback is that most court minutes have not been abstracted and published, so looking at the originals or microfilm is the only solution. But for those counties where some court minutes have been published, such as Crawford, Gwinnett and Houston (mostly the probate or inferior court), you can find interesting items.
I learned once that my Revolutionary War ancestor in South Carolina, Dennis Nolan, was about to be executed for counterfeiting when the government changed and he got a pardon or escaped.
A record of Georgians who were in the state penitentiary can be found in the two volumes of "The Georgia Black Book" by Robert S. Davis Jr. Once you find a record of the time they went to prison, you can go to the county records and check on the actual court case and hope some information exists. Loose papers are some of the best sources for details, so check to see if they survive in your county of interest.
For an article on the subject see Beverly Vorpahl's "Was Your Ancestor an Entrepreneur of Another Kind?" in the July/August 2011 issue of Family Chronicle magazine, found at bookstores or online at www.familychronicle.com.
North Carolina Bible records
The North Carolina State Library in Raleigh, adjoining the state archives, has a large collection of Bible records collected over the past 80 years, and now these records have been digitized and put online for free.
At least 1,500 Bibles are in the system, with more being added. They can be searched by keywords, but the website is a bit lengthy. Go to www.statelibrary.ncdcr.gov, then to Genealogists, then Digital Collections and then NC Family Records Online, where you can link to the Bible records and additional sources.
In Georgia, the Georgia Archives carries the most Bible records. They are in the DAR Collection in book form as well as many on microfilm from various sources, and some in the family vertical files.
Confederate pensions
A central location for Confederate Pension Record indexes online is at www.archives.gov, the National Archives site. Once there, search for "Confederate Pensions" and the list comes up.
The states included are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
This not only lists the location of the actual pensions, but also allows you to go to the online indexes. There is no one central place to search; you have to go state by state, with the links leading you to the respective state archives or equivalents.
