In praise of reading Will books.

Question

Carroll County Maryland was created in 1837 and I just got through reading its first will book (available of course at Family Search, for free, excellent prints). I'm casually looking for the German speaking inhabitants of my one-place study, the Bachman Valley. And what wonderful discoveries! Finding people alive 20 years after "everybody" says they're dead. Finding maiden names for scores of "unknown" wives in their fathers' wills. Finding sons-in-law so hated they are called out for condemnation. Finding illegitimate children finally acknowledged on the deathbed. And my favorite - the wills of unmarried aunts and uncles. One aunt pitifully had nothing to leave anybody but her clothes - but she methodically went down the list of all her brothers and sisters and their children, pulling huge clumps of family together. If you have time time, a will book is one fantastic revelation after another.

Answer 1

So true, Jane. I chased down a whole bunch of neices and nephews to a great-great-Uncle that went out west to mine for gold in California where he died suddenly but he left behind property out-of-state that needed to be distributed. It was quite amazing to locate everyone.

Answer 2

We have about the same thing in Norway, called "skifte". It's usually translated with probate, but there was normally no will involved. The skifte was a public affair, with enumerations of inheritors, estate inventories, and divisions of inheritance. To a genealogist, they are solid gold.

In the area where I come from, the protocols start about 1665, decades before the parish registers, and are frequently the only available source for genealogy.

At the moment, I'm working with a massive one for Hans Tygesen, a guy who died childless in 1712, as the last surviving of 11 siblings. About 90 descendants of their father are listed, in up to three generations. Most of the relations of his big family would have been unknown but for this "skifte" or probate. I have counted eight documented lines back to Tyge Andersen, both through my mother and my father.

All in all, I've made extracts of more than 2,000 probates through the years, from 1665 to the 1820s, although none as big as this one.

Comments

fantastic!!

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As genealogists, I feel at some point we are all blessed by that ancestor who left a very detailed paper trail that allows us to piece together their family. Hans, though he may never have had children of his own, certainly left us all a wonderful legacy.

Answer 3

I have been doing the same and it is fascinating.  I read one will where she left all her money to her church and specifically said all previous wills were to be ignored.  You could almost feel the anger toward whichever relatives she was writing out.

Comments

Some years ago, I posted about Michael Miller's 1795 will, in which he provided for his son John who had sided with the British in the American Revolutionary War and left home. Though it was only one sentence long, you get the sense Michael never gave up hope that his son would return one day.

Sad evidence of a family torn apart by the Revolutionary War - WikiTree G2G

Answer 4

I am also an avid will reader. Part of the fun is deciphering the handwriting, taking clues form other words that you recognize and deciphering the letters in other parts of the wills. One of my early wills had a scribble that after reading the scribble hundreds of times (well lots anyway) I finally figured out it was sd, an abbreviation of said.