As we eagerly search through microfilmed records of counties, it is easy to forget that the records held by the county courts are copies. People took their land deeds and wills and marriage licenses to the courthouse to be copied into the county records. Prior to typewriters and photocopiers, all of those records were hand copied. As a result, we are lulled into thinking that we are looking at the originals, but the originals went home with their owners. What happened to them after that is anyone's guess. Initially, they may have been tucked away into a document or trunk. Eventually, thought, many of them were lost or thrown away or burned in a house fire or blown away in a storm.
Or maybe, just maybe, they eventually find themselves auctioned away two hundred years later.
This seems to be the case of my great-great-great-great-great grandfather William Kavanaugh's will, which auctioned a year ago (sigh) in Cowan's Auctions, an online auction house. I can't help but wonder where this has been for the last two hundred years. William Kavanaugh died in Madison County, Kentucky in October, 1829.
I'm going to post the actual link here on behalf of those who come later and want to see it in the Way Back Machine:
https://www.cowanauctions.com/lot/madison-county-kentucky-will-referencing-slaves-including-two-that-were-to-be-emancipated-1823-891050
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Page one:
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Signatures:
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Nelson, A Slave in the Family
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