About nine million images, equivalent to about 4.5 million sides of parchment, have been photographed for Anglo-American Legal Tradition, with the permission of TNA. These cover many types of records, such as Exchequer, Chancery, and the central common law courts. They cover the period 1200 to 1880, but most are from 1350 to 1650.
About 65 terms in King's/Queen's Bench and Common Pleas have been indexed. Particularly the Common Pleas records have the advantage that they provide information about a huge number of 'the middling sort of people', including name, place of residence, and occupation or status. Each term contains about 4000 to 8000 entries with about 12,000 to 25,000 names. Many of these were merchants and gentry, but Professor Palmer has calculated for one year (1465), that some 70% were husbandmen, yeomen, butchers, bakers and so on. This is particularly useful for the 15th century, when there are no parish records or lay subsidies, and few wills.
Surnames are as in the original: Mead might be atte Mede, Mede, Meade, Meede, Meyde, etc. First names have been modernised. Place names are mostly as in the original, though we have translated names with Nova, Alta, Alba, etc.
Common Pleas (some terms for 1381-1554 indexed so far)
http://aalt.law.uh.edu/Indices/CP40Indices/CP40_Indices.htmlKing’s/Queen’s Bench (some terms for 1530-1666 indexed so far)
http://aalt.law.uh.edu/Indices/KB27Indices/KB27Indices.html
