Howdy - back in Nov 2002, I submitted to the RootsWeb GenWeb Archives the 'Introduction' to NJ Archives Vol. 23, Calendar of Wills #1, which was written by William Nelson. Joe Patterson was kind enough to take my transcribings and put them into the RootsWeb's format, and to him I believe all should be grateful. The material covered the following chapters: EARLY WILL MAKING IN NEW JERSEY, Topics. [Topics 1-14 are in Part I, in these archives.] 1. Primitive Ideas of Property; The Descent of Property; Semitic Laws of Descent 2. Aryan Laws of Inheritance 3. Roman Testamentary Law; The Roman-dutch Law in New Netherlands 4. Some Dutch Wills and Administrations 5. English Testamentary Law 6. Nuncupative Wills 7. Earliest New York Legislation 8. Earliest Probates of Wills in New Jersey 9. A Newark Record of Some Wills 10. First New Jersey Legislation Regarding Wills 11. Jurisdiction of the Governor and Council 12. Prerogative Jurisdiction; Deputy Surrogates 13. Nuncupative Wills; "Letters Testimonial" 14. The Probate of Wills in the Provincial Era 15. Inconveniences in Probating Wills 16. Surrogates in the Provincial Times 17. Royal Encroachment on the Governor's Prerogative 18. Some Provincial Acts 19. Fees of the Prerogative Office; The Secretary's Fees 20. Wills as Conveyances of Lands 21. A Complicated Administration 22. Special Remedial Acts of the Legislature 23. Governor Franklin's Final Acts as Ordinary 24. Under the State Government 25. Special Acts for Settling Certain Estates 26. Change in the System of Recording Wills 27. The Appointment of Surrogates; Foreign Wills; Miscellaneous Acts. 28. Proposed Revision of the Orphans' Court Act 29. The Constitution of 1844; The Revisions of 1846, 1874 and 1898. 30. The Prerogative Seal I think it would be prudent, for those of you who may be interested in the background information about wards, orphans and guardians, to pay a visit to that site and read through the various notes concerning same. The transcribings were placed there in two (2) sections. Here are the links: ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/nj/statewide/wills/willmaking01.txt ftp://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/nj/statewide/wills/willmaking02.txt There are a goodly number of names of residents of early NJ quoted in this transcription, which are not listed in the Index to Volume 23, so it may be worthwhile to visit the site to (maybe) find some good reference to an ancestor whom you might be having trouble with. I do hope this will help you all in learning a bit about the growth of NJ's laws regarding wills, etc. David - [email protected]; Sheridan Wyoming. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.