Ask NOT "Who did stealeth the said cookie from yon cookie jar" BUT rather ask "Who did stealeth yon cookie jar and with it all the cookies therein?" OR "Who did breaketh this cookie jar that he might steal some cookies?"

I came across not one or two, but SEVERAL depositions from the mid 1700s in an attempt to find out whether or not a William Lockhart who had stolen some things from a Gentleman might be related to my Lockharts from Frederick County, Virginia.

I would urge you to consider that all of this, so far as I can tell, relates to the theft of a brass kettle, a jug of molasses, and some silver spoons. And the breaking of a sugar jar in order to steal the brass kettle.

My favorite line of the deposition so far:
one Night when this Deponent was at the said Ross's House on the South Branch of Potowmack the said William Ross & his Sons the said Lawrence Ross and Robert Ross came there and brought an Iron Pot with them with a Bit broke out of the Edge which this Deponent had seen in the said Cresaps lower Fort sometime before which Pot the said Ross told this Deponent he had brought for him to cook in while he stayed there, and that the said Ross told this Deponent it was his Pot. and further this Deponent saith
not.

I just think it's funny that last part "and further this Deponent saith not". It sounds so grand and important and it's about who stole a kettle.