Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Mining the Ancestry Probate Records Collection - Post 1: Pennsylvania

Ancestry.com released their Probate Records Collection last week, with a database for each state, which I wrote about in  Ancestry.com Adds 170 Million Indexed U.S. Probate Record Images (posted 2 September 2015). I realized that we all have an excellent opportunity to SEARCH for probate records in each state now.  In general, we haven't had that opportunity before, although we could search for probate records on Family History Library microfilms (for all states, but not all counties) and, for some states, browse the images in specific FamilySearch record collections (but only for about 30 states).

However, it is apparent to me, and others, that Ancestry.com has not published ALL of the available probate records for all of the states; indeed, the collection at present seems to be fairly limited, although there are over 170 million images.  It may be that only 5% to 10% of all of the microfilmed probate records are available on Ancestry.com at this time.  If that is the case, my hope is that Ancestry.com continues to add to these state probate collections as time goes by.

I tried to figure out the best way to keep track of what I already have found at the courthouse, on FHL or other microfilm, or online in digital record collections.  Because Ancestry and FamilySearch have put probate records into state collections, I decided I needed to keep track by state.  Here is the search page for Pennsylvania:



Rather than create a spreadsheet, I decided to create a table for each state, with all of my ancestors (and other family members) who died in that state.  In these tables, I have included their name (both husband and wife), their birth and death years, the County and State where they resided and died, and columns for Courthouse, Microfilm, and Website (for digitized records).

I have done this for three states, California, Connecticut and Pennsylvania so far.  I plan to add Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin to the list over the next few weeks.  

For example, here is the Table for Pennsylvania:


PENNSYLVANIA (updated 8 September 2015)

Name (B-D)
County, State
Courthouse
Microfilm
Website
Martin Carringer (1758-1835)* Mercer, PA

Mercer Co. PA Will Book, Volume 2, Pages 33-34, accessed on FHL 0,878,967
FamilySearch "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry “Penn. Wills And Probates, 1683-1993”
Maria Hoax Carringer (1768-1850) Mercer, PA None

Ancestry: NO
Cornelius Feather (1777-1853)* Mercer, PA



FamilySearch "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Daniel Spangler (1781-1851)* Mercer, PA



FamilySearch "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Elizabeth King Spangler (1796-1863) Crawford, PA



Ancestry: NO
Rudolf Spangler (1738-1811)* York, PA



FamilySearch: "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Dorothea Dinkel Spangler (1748-1835) York, PA



FamilySearch: "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Philip Jacob Konig (1764-1829)* York, PA



FamilySearch: "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Catherine Ruth Konig (1770-1813) York, PA None

Ancestry: NO
Johan Balthazar Spengler (1706-1770)* York, PA



FamilySearch: "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Maria Margaretha Ritter Spengler (1706-1784)* York, PA



FamilySearch: "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Johan Daniel Dinkel (1713-1755) York, PA



FamilySearch: "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Maria Ursula Van Ernest Dinkel (1713-1793) York, PA



Ancestry: NO
Philip Jacob Konig (1738-1792)* York, PA



FamilySearch "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO
Maria Barbara Wilhelm (1740-1779) York, PA None

Ancestry: NO
Johan Nicolaus Konig (1707-1776) York, PA



Ancestry: NO
Maria Margaretha Stuber Konig (1702-1771) York, PA None

Ancestry: NO
Philip Jacob Wilhelm (1705-1773)* Lancaster, PA



FamilySearch "Pennsylvania, Probate Records, 1683-1994"
Ancestry: NO


For those persons for whom I'm very sure there are no probate records, I put "None" in the "Courthouse" column.  For those persons for whom I had found probate records on microfilm, I added information in that column.  For those persons for whom I have found probate records in digital format, I added information in the Website column.

Since Ancestry.com has enabled a name search, I checked Ancestry's Pennsylvania, Wills and Probates, 1683-1993 database and noted if there was a digital record.  There are 15 persons who might have probate records on the list above, and there was only one record found on Ancestry in a name search (I searched with wild cards) for those 15 ancestors.  There are 11 persons for whom I have found probate records on FamilySearch.  It is possible that Ancestry has done a poor job of indexing names, but I think that they just don't have all of the records indexed and imaged that FamilySearch has imaged.

Using this table, I can see the persons for whom I have a probate record, and where I obtained it.  I can also see which persons I need to search for on FamilySearch and on microfilms for probate records.  If I ever go to the Pennsylvania Counties, perhaps I will visit the courthouses to obtain the  original papers in the specific probate estate packets.  

As you can see, having the FamilySearch browse images Probate collection for Pennsylvania has been a great benefit for me and mt research.  For the names highlighted by an asterisk (*), you can find the transcriptions, and some record images, in my Amanuensis Monday Pages.

I encourage readers to create a table similar to the one above (I just used my word processor), or some other finding aid, in order to help them organize their search for probate records on Ancestry, on FamilySearch, on microfilm, and at the courthouses.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/mining-ancestry-probate-records.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.


2 comments:

Joanne said...

Randy, many of the missing records were from York County, Pennsylvania. I checked the database on Ancestry and used the browse feature and it showed no entries for York County. So apparently Ancestry has no York County wills and probate in their collection at the present time.
Joanne Skelton
Cottage Grove, Oregon


PS I met you on the 2008 TMG cruise and again at the 2015 SCGS Jamboree

Perry said...

You might be right about the 5–10% estimate, but for the Midwest, I think it's much better than that. For the many of the counties that I was interested in, a vast majority of the LDS microfilm has been uploaded. In many cases, these weren't previously available digitally on FamilySearch. The Iowa and Indiana collections, for example, have been a real boon for me this past week. In Marion County, Iowa, the Ancestry collection even includes deeds! From what I've seen Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, and Kentucky seem to be fairly complete too, but those were previously available on FamilySearch.