Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Plymouth Colony Records Indexes for Probate and Other Records

I highlighted Dale Cook's website, www.PlymouthColony.net, in my post Consoilidated Index to Plymouth Colony Records (posted 28 June 2010).



Hiding in this very large website with many links to Plymouth Colony towns and records is the page for "Guides to Plymouth Colony Records" at http://plymouthcolony.net/resources/pcr.html:


This page informs us that Dale Cook has added "A Guide to Old County Wills" - a 55 page PDF that lists wills in the Plymouth colony records from 1633 to 1692.  Dale has also updated the "Consolidated Guide to Plymouth Colony Records" - a 483 page PDF that lists all records available for persons in Plymouth Colony from 1633 to 1692.

Clicking on the links for the PDFs downloads them to my computer system - a web page did not open for them (which is why I didn't provide links!).

The first page for "A Guide to Old County Wills" provides information about what is included and how it is indexed:



Scrolling down a bit, here is an image of the top of the A surname list:


The really neat thing on this list is that Dale has indexed the following information, images and transcriptions:

*  In bold black:  Volume: part: folio number in the original record books (available on FamilySearch - see below)

*  In bold red:  Image number in the FamilySearch collection for Plymouth County Probate Records, 1633-1686, Vols. 1-4 on FHL Microfilm US/CAN 0,567,794 (the first image is at https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1961-31878-2594-10?cc=2018320&wc=MM1H-6KG:n1223647856).

NOTE:  The link for this is wrong (as of 20 August 2013) in the FamilySearch Library Catalog page at https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/89113?availability=Family%20History%20Library - that link goes to the later probate records, not the probate records before 1686.

*  In bold green:  Transcriptions available in print

*  In bold blue:  Abstracts available in print

The abbreviations for the printed records are:

**  MD - Mayflower Descendant
**  NEHGR - New England Historical and Genealogical Register
**  PCR - Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England
**  Pope - The Plymouth Scrap Book
**  Simmons - Plymouth Colony Records, Volume 1: Wills and Inventories, 1633-1669
**  Waters - Genealogical Gleanings in New England

Many issues of the Mayflower Descendant and the New England Historical and Genealogical Register are available online at the New England Historic Genealogical Society website, www.americanancestors.org, which is a membership/subscription site.   

The Simmons book is still under copyright protection, but the PCR volumes (by Shurtleff and Pulsifer), the Pope book, and the Waters book are available on Google Books and other online book sites.

When I was at the Family History Library in 2011, I managed to find a microfilm with transcriptions of the original records and copied them from the microfilm.  Now I can't find a reference to that microfilm in the FamilySearch Library Catalog!

I need to go through these indexes to determine which probate records to find and copy on the FamilySearch digital microfilm, and then find them, save them and transcribe them.

Dale Cook has performed an extremely valuable task by indexing these records and cross indexing them to microfilms, images, transcriptions and abstracts.  Thank you, Dale!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/08/plymouth-colony-records-indexes-for.html

Copyright (c) 2013), Randall J. Seaver

1 comment:

Anita said...

Randy, I wonder if the gremlins are at work at Family Search - last night I clicked on several links there that took me from a correct index item to a totally incorrect record!