Judicial Indexes

About

This is a collection of indexes specific to court cases held as part of the collections of the Kentucky State Archives. The indexes were created by Kentucky State Archives staff and volunteers. They do not represent a comprehensive indexing of all judicial cases. Some of the cases listed are available on microfilm and/or Family Search.
To access any cases found referenced in this index plan a visit to the Research Room of the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. If unable to visit in person you can place an order for a scan of the case to be delivered to you.

For more information

To learn more about the Kentucky State Archives’ judicial collections you can refer to the Circuit Court Inventory [PDF document].
You can also get further context on these materials and the history of the judicial system in Kentucky from the Kentucky Court Records Research Guide [PDF document].

Navigation

Select "Case by County" to begin your search. Identify the County or Court you’d like to search. You can choose more than one County or Court for any search. The search will cross reference plaintiffs and defendants, or you can limit your search to either party. Enter the name and hit enter. You can also retrieve all indexed cases from a given county by leaving the name field empty when conducting your search.

Tips

Consider checking for alternate spellings of any names you are searching. Most of the indexes were created from handwritten material which often contained multiple spellings for names.
Please click on the link under "Accession#" column for each county to see notes for specific indexes for more details on each index. Some indexes contain more than one accession (often notated by a .1 or .2 after the number) or they may not index all of the cases within that time span for that county.
In most instances, dates for civil cases are the latest date seen in the case while criminal cases are listed by indictment date. Cases are generally filed chronologically unless otherwise noted.