The Ottoman empire was a vast bureaucracy that churned out paper at a rate deserving of the respect of any modern bureaucracy. Quite a few of those records have been preserved. However, they’re written in Arabic script, using formal hands of varying degrees of intelligibility and legal formats and formulae that can be equally arcane.<\/p>\n
Quite a few Turkish graduate students have transcribed Ottoman-era records into the modern Turkish alphabet. These can be found across the Internet, but one particularly rich lode of them is the Tez Ar\u015fivi (Thesis Archive)<\/a>, which searches the Ulusal Tez Merkezi (National Thesis Center)<\/a>. Some can also be found in the ISAM K\u00fct\u00fcphanesi (ISAM Library)<\/a>, which has, among a number of other databases, a dedicated court record catalog<\/a>. The full text is often available in the database of full text access (see the top menu), though you will need to dig through the many, many options to find the right database. The Database for Articles in Islamic Studies – Content<\/a> is the best place to start.<\/p>\n Note that all the databases above are fussy about spelling, so, for example, they do not recognize “kadi” as a misspelling of “kad\u0131”.<\/p>\n Tax records recorded the name of every male of the taxpaying class\u2014that is, every free male above the age of about 15 who didn’t belong to the aristocracy, the Janissaries, or the other groups that were exempt from the standard tax. Populations are listed according to community and\/or tribal or religious affiliation, making tax records a rich source of information about variation between groups.<\/p>\n By their nature, tax records include only men’s names, except on the rare occasion that a woman is mentioned as a landowner.<\/p>\n Personal Names from Sivas Sanjak<\/strong> (S\u0130VAS SANCA\u011eINDA K\u0130\u015e\u0130 ADLARI)<\/a>, by Dr. Y\u0131lmaz Kurt<\/p>\n Analyzes the names from the 16th-century tax records of Sivas, a district in a historically Armenian part of central Turkey. Includes:<\/p>\n Personal Names from Tokat City<\/strong> (Tokat \u015eehri Ki\u015fi Adlar\u0131 [XVI Y\u00fczy\u0131l])<\/a>, by Dr. Y\u0131lmaz Kurt<\/p>\n Analyzes the names from the 1572 tax records of Tokat, a city in Sivas sanjak. Includes:<\/p>\n Kayseri 1570 Tax Register<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00c7orum 1576\/1577 Tax Register<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Court records cover all the legal cases from a given time and place, including estate inventories, slave manumissions, reports of missing slaves, and the creation of charitable foundations, in addition to the usual disputes between neighbors. Although the courts were based upon Muslim law, all citizens were free to make appeals, even Christians and Jews whose religious communities were allowed to handle their own legal affairs. The result is a broad cross-section of society, including that most elusive of all Ottoman Turkish social groups, women.<\/p>\n Gallipoli 1519<\/a><\/p>\n Records from \u0130stanbul and its surrounds<\/a><\/p>\n Uskudar records of charitable foundations (vakf) from 1520-1566<\/a> [information page<\/a>]<\/p>\n \u00dcsk\u00fcdar 23, 1561-1563 Court Records<\/a> [information page<\/a>]<\/p>\n Bursa 1580-1583 Court Records<\/a> [information page<\/a>]<\/p>\n Ottoman provinces, 1593-1595<\/a><\/p>\n Edirne 1640-1642 Estate Records<\/a><\/p>\n Edirne 1655-1669 Estate Records<\/a><\/p>\n Aintab Sharia Court Records, 1752<\/a><\/p>\n Harput 1638 \u2013 1639 (H.1048 \u2013 1049) \u00a0Shari\u2019ah Register Presentation and Index<\/a><\/p>\n Socio-economical life in Edirne between h. 1065-1079\/ m. 1655-1669 according to the \u015fer’iyye registers<\/a><\/p>\n Tokat’ta Sharia Court Records, 1772-1897<\/a><\/p>\n Aintab Court Records, 1752<\/a><\/p>\n Vidin (Balkans)\u00a0Sharia Court\u00a0Records, 1729-1732<\/a><\/p>\n Konya Sharia Court Records, 1738-1740<\/a><\/p>\n The Description and Index of the Court Register of Rus\u00e7uk (1166-1167\/1752-1754)<\/a><\/p>\n Paleography of the 1730 Sharia Records for a location that I frankly can’t work out<\/a><\/p>\n16th Century<\/h3>\n
Tax Records<\/h4>\n
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Court Records<\/h4>\n
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17th Century<\/h3>\n
18th Century<\/h3>\n