now, folks - I just want to clarify - my mom doesn't have any thoughts that she is due money she didn't get from her grandparents. neither did her parents or sibs; they were the only possible "heirs." Mom is 80 herself - she just can't think how her grandparents lived as well as they did, with the money her granddad would have earned. This does puzzle her, and as I said, it is the only genealogy thing she is curious about. it would be nice to please her. I appreciated the suggestions about taking in wash or sewing. my mom did not. when I asked if there was any chance of that, she said "surely you jest - take in wash? she sent her own out! she was no washer woman!" She says grandma could not have hidden wash or sewing - 6 grandkids in and out too often. They did not rent out the Billerica house, nor the RI cabin. My sister and I laugh over less respectable sources of money. When we said maybe her grandma was a bootlegger, mom said "NO! that was your dad's grandma!" (I think it could have been something like: an Cambridge Irish cop apparently showed up at the door to ask a Lithuanian immigrant something along the lines of "what's this I hear, you been making beer?" during the prohibition. She - the Lithuanian - never could speak much English. But she did know two things - 1)that if the cops showed up, you better do what they said, and 2) that if men demanded beer, you better give it to them. The cop left with a bottle, she thought she got off lightly; govt in Lithuania was very repressive and to be greatly feared. He came back the very next week . . . eventually, his cousin married her daughter.) My sister and I had less savory ideas, but mom was quite floored. NO WAY! Besides, great grand ma was busy being what I guess would be called a club woman. I realize I have strayed off topic again, but I do have genealogy questions: 1) how would I find out about probate in 1959 for a Cambridge resident? is that still the court over by Lechmere? any idea how expensive it could be? any online source? I am in western Canada, no trip on the horizon. 2) I have seen the online property thing on the Cambridge city website. No help, as they didn't own land in Cambridge. does anyone know how I could research land records for Billerica, circa the 1920s to the 1940s? I have not done any land record work in my previous genealogy "diggings," so I am quite a newby in that regard. well, as always, my thanks to you all for listening, er, that is, reading, and thanks for suggestions.