FINDING PROBATE RECORDS IN THE FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY CATALOG

The Family History Library Catalog is a wonderful resource for locating probate records. Just remember these levels for searching for your ancestor. If you cannot find the records under one level, try the next. In the New England states probate records are found in their own probate districts which may not be the same as the county or town which they represent. State-wide probate indexes may be found at the state level, but the records themselves may be at the county level. Some states have county-level records and independent cities (see Virginia, for example.)

Those at a federal level: UNITED STATES, PROBATE

Those at a state level: STATE, PROBATE

Those at a county level: STATE, COUNTY, PROBATE

Those at a town level: STATE, COUNTY, TOWN, PROBATE

Try to locate a probate record regarding your ancestor at one of these levels and report back to your instructor.

SAMPLE SOURCES IN THE FHLC

Cotton, Jane Baldwin and Roberta B. Henry. The Maryland Calendar of Wills. 1904-28. Rpt. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1968. FHL US/CAN BOOK AREA 975.2 S2c 1968.

Index to Probate Records in New Hampshire, Counties of Rockingham, Cheshire, Strafford, Grafton (and) Hillsborough. [Rockingham County 1753-1800; all other counties 1769-1800]. FHL US/CAN BOOK AREA 974.2 P2i.

Wade, Daraleen Phillips, compiler. Genealogical Abstracts of the First 2500 Probate Records in Marion County, Oregon. Willamette Valley Genealogical Society. Salem, Ore. : Willamette Valley Genealogical Society, 1985. FHL US/CAN BOOK AREA 979.537 P28g.

Other sources may be located in the bibliography in your textbook materials.

SOURCES TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PROBATE

Eakle, Arlene, and Johni Cerny, eds. The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy. Salt Lake City, Utah: Ancestry Publishing, 1984. FHL Reference Counter

Greenwood, Val D. The Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2000. FHL US/CAN BOOK AREA 973 D27g 2000.

Leary, Helen F. M., and Maurice R. Stirewalt. North Carolina Research: Genealogy and Local History. Raleigh: The North Carolina Genealogical Society, 1980. FHL Reference Counter

Rubincam, Milton, ed. Genealogical Research Methods and Sources. Washington, D.C.: The American Society of Genealogists, 1960. FHL US/CAN BOOK AREA 973 D27gr

Salmon, Marylynn. Women and the Law of Property in Early America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

Shammas, Carole, Marylynn Salmon, and Michel Dahlin, Inheritance in America: From Colonial Times to the Present. New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1987. FHL US/CAN BOOK AREA 973 P2sh

Speth, Linda E. "More Than Her 'Thirds': Wives and Widows in Colonial Virginia." Women, Family, and Community in Colonial America, edited by Linda E. Speth and Alison Duncan Hirsch. New York: Institute for Research in History and the Haworth Press, 1983.

Ward, Barbara McLean, "Women's Property and Family Continuity in Eighteenth Century Connecticut." Early American Probate Inventories, The Dublin Seminar for New England Folklife Annual Proceedings 1987, edited by Peter Benes. Boston University, 1989.

Wright, Norman Edgar. Building An American Pedigree: A Study in Genealogy. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1974. FHL US/CAN BOOK AREA 973 D27we

Legal terminology used in court records may be found in Henry Campbell Black's, M.A. Black's Law Dictionary, Rev. 4th ed. (St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1972), and William C. Burton's Legal Thesaurus (New York: Macmillan Co., 1981).

Bananas

Here lies the body of our dear Anna,

Done to death by a banana.

It wasn't the fruit that laid her low,

But the skin of the thing that made her go.

 Bananas