LESSON ELEVEN
18th Century Immigrant Ancestor Clues from Probate Records

READING ASSIGNMENT: Click here for Chapter 11

Many published sources for court or probate are being put online at Ancestry.com. One example is the American Data from the Records of the High Court of the Admiralty of Scotland, 1675-1800. This is a copy of David Dobson’s book by the same name. Scotland's High Court of the Admiralty, which was established in the mid-15th century, had jurisdiction over civil, criminal, and prize matters upon the high seas. The earliest extant records of the Admiralty Court date from 1657, and they are housed in the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh. David Dobson culled the records of the High Court of the Admiralty--mostly from the court's Register of Decrees--for any reference to America between the years 1675 and 1800.

The several hundred abstracts transcribed here concern cases dealing with pirates, privateers, colonial merchants, emigrants, slavers, and seafarers, and they are important because they identify the Scottish merchants and mariners who were trading with colonial America and Scottish agents and their servants who, as Mr. Dobson has said, "formed the vanguard of subsequent settlement there."

Although there is a great deal of variation between the cases, most of them involve a broken agreement or failure to pay what was claimed by the plaintiff in the suit. Witness the following one: "August 1, 1800. David Kennedy, mariner in Greenock, and Laurence Crawford, shipmaster in Irvine, v. Captain Malcom Dugald, master of the schooner Matilda. In December 1796 Kemedy went on voyage from the Clyde to Demerara then to Martinique then to St. Vincent and from there to Trinidad where he was impressed in the Royal Navy. Kennedy claims for his unpaid wages."

In all, nearly 3,000 Scotsmen with a maritime connection to the New World, were brought to light.

Another source is Jones, Gordon C. Abstracts of Wills and Other Records, Currituck and Dare Counties, North Carolina (1663-1850). Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1977. The abstracts do not give the names of previous localities, only the names of relatives and dates. It would be necessary to look at the original record to find location clues, but it is a good resource for the Colonial period.

Peter Coldham’s book, American Migrations 1765-1799: The lives, times, and families of colonial Americans who remained loyal to the British Crown before, during and after the Revolutionary War, as related in their own words and through their correspondence. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2000, is available under an index at Ancestry called, American Migrations 1765-1799. Often these indexes are not as yet linked to the big search engine and must be searched individually.

“These records were part of the Loyalists' claims submitted to the American Claims Commission between 1765 and 1799 for compensation for loss of land and property as a result of action taken against Loyalists before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. In this book, cases are grouped together as far as practicable according to the name and normal residence of the person in whose right each claim was rendered. This has the benefit of grouping together under the name of a sole original landowner the applications of many descendants who may have submitted claims under different names. All 5,800 individual claims--the entire contents of the papers of the Claims Commission that form record classes AO 12 and AO 13 at the Public Record Office--are abstracted. Of the 15,000 individuals recorded in this work, some three-quarters took up residence outside the United States after 1783--hence the title of the work--but the remainder, including many who had been classed as Loyalists, became honorable citizens of the new Republic.”

Many of the probate records online are merely indexes to wills, with no link to the original records. For example, Essex, Massachusetts Probate Records, 1638-1840. One entry from this source would be:

File #: 9818
Name: Benjamin Fosster; Foster; Forster
File Date: 20 Nov 1700
Residence: Ipswich
Type: intestate

A researcher would then be able to look at the original records that have been microfilmed at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, and have the film sent to a local Family History Center where the original images could be studied. Other examples include: Hartford, Connecticut Probate Records, 1635-50, Maine Will Abstracts, 1640-1760, and Wills and Administrations of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, 1647-1800.