1 - Front Cover.p65 - ProQuest

To Whom Addressed field contains the exact wording of the petition’s salutation.
In the few cases in which a petitioner did not use a salutation, the “To Whom
Addressed” field does not appear.
Location field generally contains the county of origin of the petition; sometimes, in
district or circuit court cases, the field contains the county of origin of the petitioner.
Date refers primarily to the date when the petition was filed. This date usually can
be found on the docket page of the case. When the filing date is not available, other
dates are used: (1) dates used by the petitioner(s); (2) dates inferred from the related
documents; (3) dates inferred from the contents of the petition; (4) dates assigned by
the archives. Petitions for which a date could not be determined are assigned
accession numbers that contain “000” in the date part of the accession number. For
example, the first county court petition from the state of Mississippi for which the
date is unknown bears the accession number 21000001. These petitions have been
placed at the beginning of each state’s collection.
Petitioners and Defendants fields are used to record information about the
petitioner(s) and defendant(s). Their color, gender, and legal status are also included.
In addition, the total number of petitioners is also denoted.
Abstract field contains a brief summary of the main points of the petition and may
include background information or particularly illustrative quotations.
Related Documents field contains all documents relating to the petition, including
the name of the document, the county the document comes from if different from the
petition, the name of the prominent person mentioned in the document (not always
the petitioner or author), and the date. For example, Affidavit, Mary Smith, Baldwin
County, 11 May 1810. The letters “n.d.” indicate an undated document. Petitions
related to other PARs are indicated by the following: PAR #20381402. Or, for multiple
PARs: PARs #20381402, #20381404.
Result of Petition field contains information about the outcome of the petition, if
known (e.g., granted, rejected, dismissed, appealed, reversed, remanded).
Number of Pages in Petition field consists of the docket page, the body of the
petition, and signature pages. Any related documents that appear on the same page
as part of the petition or docket page are not counted as related documents. In other
words, if the petition or docket pages have related documents on them or parts of
related documents on them, the pages are counted as petition pages and not as
related document pages.
Number of Pages in Related Documents do not contain any parts of the petition
or docket page.
Location of petition cites information concerning the location of the original petition
within a county courthouse, archives, or library.
Repository cites the location of the county courthouse, archives, or library.
Subjects for each petition are included in the PAR. The first three subjects are
ranked first, second, and third in importance. Only ranked subjects are included in
the index. The other subjects (often there are a total of six or seven subjects per
PAR) can be found in the future by searching the Race and Slavery Petitions Project
Web site. Listed below are the five subjects most frequently ranked first in
Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas.
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