If a typically poor Irish immigrant died in Manhattan in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, would there likely have been probate records? This is something I've never explored but I figured that since they didn't own property, there would not have been a will or other records. Melanie Orlando FL

I found probate records for my great-great grandfather, an Irish immigrant who died in 1861. He did not own property but the papers named his wife and all of his children and where they were living. One of his sons, who was a minor at the time of his father's death, was living with a family in another county and working as a farm hand. Probate records can be a treasure trove of information.