Monroe County, Ohio, Court of Common Pleas

(Reverse Index to Judgments   1815 - 1877)

 

Photographs and Index prepared by

Richard Harrington

 

One of the most useful sources of information for historical and genealogical research is the collection of legal records maintained in the office of the Clerk of Courts.  Many citizens required the services of the court system sometime in their lifetime.  Each interaction was duly recorded by the system and provides insight into some aspect of the life of that person.  The challenge for the researcher becomes one of finding the needed material within the volumes in the archives. 

An important document in the quest for historical and genealogical information in the office of the Clerk of Courts is the “Reverse Index to Judgments – Court of Common Pleas.” The Reverse Index to Judgments is an index of legal cases in Monroe County which is organized by the surname of the defendant, the person being sued.  It covers the period 1815 through 1877.  This book provides an approximate date of the legal case, the names the parties involved, and references to other records within the Clerk of Courts Office where additional information may be found. 

This index is the product of work by several oil companies who did legal research in Monroe County, Ohio.  Copies of the index were then made available to the Clerk of Courts.  The current project of photographing important County records and making them available to the public on CDs will go a long way toward preserving much of the information in these valuable documents.

          The record books in the office of the Clerk of Courts vary in size and shapes.  On your computer screen they may appear small.  So, when you visit these computer pages, you may need to view them with a browser that has a ‘zoom’ feature.  Most browsers have a zoom.  The pictures of the pages are of sufficiently high quality (high number of pixels) that they can be magnified (zoomed) several times before they become fuzzy. 

          There are no page numbers on the pages in this index.  Consecutive page numbers would be meaningless to the user, anyway.  The entries of cases are arranged alphabetically with the defendant’s name given first (which is the reason it is called a “Reverse Index”).  Within each group of alphabetical names (for example, within all of the defendant’s names that begin with the letter “a”) the entries are listed chronologically.  This ordering, therefore, provides a good reference for identifying the pages.  “Page numbers” employ the first letter of the surnames found on that page, followed by the year of the first entry found on that page.  For example, N-1848 is the “page number” of a page containing surnames that begin with the letter “N.”  The year 1848 is the year of the first case found on that page.  In the electronic table below the page N-1848 follows page N-1816 and precedes page N-1878.

For best results, use the Electronic Index provided below as your “home base.”  Click on the “page number” to access the page.  To return to the Electronic Index, use the back arrow in the top-left corner of your screen.

Happy hunting!!

Monroe County Court of Common Pleas

Reverse Index to Judgments

1815 - 1877

 

 

 

 

 

Key to abbreviations found in the Reverse Index

 

AP DKT = Appearance Docket

JNL = Journal

EX DKT = Execution Docket

REC = Record