Breakthrough with father's will facts: Leggett who? Plus a darned, cursive will probate package for skilled readers

Question

1. Mainly due to the condensed nature of the will abstract, I am having a hard time teasing out whether some sources are correct that Sarah's mother was Martha Bentley versus Martha Tomlinson.

(At least I finally found this one source document that squarely situates Sarah as the husband of a Bate.)

2. I cannot discern who the slaves were bequeathed to, exactly, either.

3. Some "soft" sources seem to suggest that Sarah's father died in 1762. Thus, I hope it's a reasonable conclusion to draw that the source entry was a probate record. Perhaps it was standard practice that wills were only "recorded" at probate?

4. NEW: Please see the below answer that has the link to a James Leggett will. At least two generations of James Leggett North Carolina deaths occurred, and the will probate documents are not well organized and are all in cursive, if any volunteers are available that have skill in reading that. <fingers crossed>

Answer 1

Here’s the original will, it might have more context: 

"North Carolina Estate Files, 1663-1979," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VH6F-ZVG : 12 March 2018), James Leggett, ; citing Bertie, North Carolina, United States, State Archives, Raleigh; FHL microfilm 1,671,518.

Comments

How did you find that? There must be a duplicate profile that had the source attached, which has widely different characteristics. Frequently, once a source is "owned" by a profile, it won't come up for a duplicate profile's searches unless the index criteria happen to match with some unknown precision. Have you encountered this?

This is one huge advantage of WikiTree's one tree approach.

Can't wait to get on the desktop so that I can review the will. Hopefully, it's legible.

Thanks for finding that.

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I glanced through it and attached it to James Leggett her father and James Leggett her brother. It's hard to tell because the material's not well organized and I cannot read cursive well, at all. A guardianship happened. Based upon dating of some of the material and persons receiving support, it may more likely be Sarah's brother, James' will.

If the FamilySearch family constellation is correct, Sarah's brother married an Elizabeth Bentley. Sarah's father, James, (again, presumptively) married Martha Tomlinson.

Answer 2

Are the 2 Martha’s necessarily different women? What if she was born Bentley, married Tomlinson, then married Leggett?

Comments

If she were the Tomlinson widow, it would be just like the patriarchy to tell her how that estate would be dispensed. It's a definite possibility.

FamilySearch is a mess around this family, but that's not so unusual for early colonial people.