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.
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 Arşivi (Thesis Archive), which searches the Ulusal Tez Merkezi (National Thesis Center). Some can also be found in the ISAM Kütüphanesi (ISAM Library), which has, among a number of other databases, a dedicated court record catalog. 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 is the best place to start.
Note that all the databases above are fussy about spelling, so, for example, they do not recognize “kadi” as a misspelling of “kadı”.
16th Century
Tax Records
Tax records recorded the name of every male of the taxpaying class—that 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.
By their nature, tax records include only men’s names, except on the rare occasion that a woman is mentioned as a landowner.
Personal Names from Sivas Sanjak (SİVAS SANCAĞINDA KİŞİ ADLARI), by Dr. Yılmaz Kurt
Analyzes the names from the 16th-century tax records of Sivas, a district in a historically Armenian part of central Turkey. Includes:
- Discussion of individual names, pp. 226-238
- The most common non-Muslim (mostly Armenian) names, Table 1, p. 240
- All Muslim names in alphabetical order, pp. 249-273
- All non-Muslim names in alphabetical order, pp. 274-290
Personal Names from Tokat City (Tokat Şehri Kişi Adları [XVI Yüzyıl]), by Dr. Yılmaz Kurt
Analyzes the names from the 1572 tax records of Tokat, a city in Sivas sanjak. Includes:
- Table 1, the most common names, p. 543
- Table 2, the second most common names, pp. 543-544
- Table 3, the third most common names, p. 544
- Discussion of the names taken by converts to Islam, pp. 545-546
Court Records
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.
Records from İstanbul and its surrounds
- Üsküdar 1, 1513-1521
- Üsküdar 2, 1518-1521
- Üsküdar 5, 1524-1530
- Üsküdar 9, 1534-1536
- Üsküdar 14, 1546-1549
- Üsküdar 17, 1549-1556
- Üsküdar 26, 1562-1563
- Üsküdar 51, 1579-1580
- Üsküdar 56, 1582-1583
- Üsküdar 84, 1590-1591
- Balat 2, 1563
- Rumeli 21, 1594-1595
- İstanbul 3, 1618
- Rumeli 56, 1633
- Rumeli 80, 1647-1649
- İstanbul 12, 1663-1664
- Bab 3, 1666-1667
- İstanbul 18, 1675-1676
- Bab 46, 1685-1686
- Bab 54, 1691
- İstanbul 24, 1726-1738
- Eyüb 3, 1585-1587
- Hasköy 5, 1612-1643
- Eyüb 19, 1619-1620
- Eyüb 37, 1637-1638
- Eyüb 49, 1644
- Eyüb 61, 1655
- Eyüb 74, 1661-1662
- Eyüb 82, 1670-1671
- Hasköy 10, 1674-1679
- Eyüb 90, 1679-1680
- Galata 5, 1575-1576
- Galata 7, 1577-1578
- Galata 15, 1573-1591
- Galata 20, 1596-1599
- Galata 32, 1606-1607
- Galata 37, 1613-1615
- Galata 46, 1615-1620
- Galata 65, 1641-1644
- Galata 90, 1663
Uskudar records of charitable foundations (vakf) from 1520-1566 [information page]
Üsküdar 23, 1561-1563 Court Records [information page]
Bursa 1580-1583 Court Records [information page]
17th Century
Edirne 1640-1642 Estate Records
Edirne 1655-1669 Estate Records
Aintab Sharia Court Records, 1752
Harput 1638 – 1639 (H.1048 – 1049) Shari’ah Register Presentation and Index
18th Century
Tokat’ta Sharia Court Records, 1772-1897
Vidin (Balkans) Sharia Court Records, 1729-1732
Konya Sharia Court Records, 1738-1740
The Description and Index of the Court Register of Rusçuk (1166-1167/1752-1754)
Paleography of the 1730 Sharia Records for a location that I frankly can’t work out
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwju0b_Fl5HRAhUBhyYKHRcQCo0QFggzMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2F193.255.140.18%2FTez%2F0075909%2FMETIN.pdf&usg=AFQjCNFr53YBllMEUJ-0S6S_TmfYZarRgA&sig2=vF5ztIxWybqhhBmxLfYriQ
109 Numaralı Ayıntap Şer’iyye Sicili’nin Transkripsiyonu ve Değerlendirmesi
19th Century
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwju0b_Fl5HRAhUBhyYKHRcQCo0QFggqMAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdergipark.ulakbim.gov.tr%2Ffiratsbed%2Farticle%2FviewFile%2F5000172958%2F5000155982&usg=AFQjCNH9TejJDkX9clCKQ88IKgH66q9pzw&sig2=XoluNkDma-vdF4xh8hcYlQ
http://www.antalyatarihi.com/sites/default/files/document-images/MSH_SSC_d_1150-3.pdf
Adana, Aleppo Sharia Court Records, 1823
Izmir Kassam Tereke Records, 1893-1896
Konya Sharia Records, 1837-1839
Konya Sharia Records, 1840-1843
Paleography of the 1866-1867 Court Records of Zabit
Undetermined
http://adudspace.adu.edu.tr:8080/jspui/bitstream/11607/1617/1/10044856.pdf
http://ulusaltezmerkezi.com/692-nolu-balikesir-seriye-sicil-defteri-transkripsiyon-ve-degerlendirme/
http://openaccess.ogu.edu.tr:8080/xmlui/handle/11684/488
https://www.academia.edu/16319645/MANASTIR%C4%B1n_B%C4%B0TOLA_II_Numaral%C4%B1_%C5%9Eeriye_Sicili_1621-1623_-_Ege_%C3%9Cniversitesi_T%C3%BCrk_D%C3%BCnyas%C4%B1_Ara%C5%9Ft%C4%B1rmalar%C4%B1_Y%C3%BCksek_Lisans_Tez%C4%B0zmir_2000