Hi Julia. It was a pleasure meeting you at surrogate court yesterday, and to give you a quick tour of Orange County Genealogical Society, the greatest "hidden asset" in Orange County as far as genealogists are concerned. As far as identification, I'd recommend following the index format, as that's what the next person would need to find the same document year, first name, last name, type, liber, page. one exception - for inventories use the exact date instead of liber and page I'm still working on indexing the wills at Orange County Surrogate Court from 1831 to 1865, as an "add-on" to the very popular book "Early Wills of Orange County NY 1787-1830". Rough estimate is about 2,000 to 2,300 entries when finished. It will just tell people that there is a will available. But wills are not the only type of documents. A letter of administration is a positive statement that no valid will was ever recorded. Guardianships name one or both parents. Decrees can include many key facts. I always recommend copying everything for a given person. My index will not include all probate records - just wills, and it will not include any abstracts. To index everything is far too big a project for one person to tackle. In a previous message to this list I named the 12 wills which that book missed - but they definitely are at surrogate court. I hope that helps. And now off to Vermont, to see our granddaughter graduate from high school tonight. Marty Irons