This has been an excellent exchange with great instructions on what to do. I know the wills on line (and also land records) are not of much use to people researching recent inhabitants of New York, but always at least look to see if there are records. It was my failing to do so for my supposed great grandparents (also supposedly poor) that kept me from knowing my grandmother was adopted for so long. More recent work on Wilkinses and DeWitts in the early 19th century has been very productive. I repeated my search for Peter DeWitt (d 1810 Harlem) in New York County recently to see how easy it was to do on line and discovered there was an index that covered all the volumes from late 18th century up into the 20th. Only three Peters, only one in 1810, vol. 48, and then the number that turned out to be the original page number of an older volume (Liber) because these volumes had all been transcribed, by hand, at a later date (so no original signatures). But that original page number was written into the left column of the transcribed volumes whenever the transcriber turned the page of the old volume. So it took only a couple of minutes of clicking around in the familysearch.org scans to find Peter DeWitt's will again with both his sons' names. And remember that the filmed records of LDS are still available by rental at a Family History Center even if they do not have them scanned yet. Also eventually one will be able to search these images the way we search typed ones. Since the work is all done by volunteers, the outcome is free. Elizabeth On 4/7/2015 3:00 AM, [email protected] wrote: > Re: How to find wills on familysearch.org