Good morning, Juliann. Yes, there is a will at surrogate court for every name on the list of 16 that I posted. The folks who created "Early Wills of Orange County NY" did a wonderful job - abstracting from almost 1,400 hand-written wills. I can't imagine how much work that involved, or how long it took. But they missed a few. Because I go to surrogate court frequently to get wills for others, I became aware that when they were preparing the abstracts they had missed a few wills completely, so I spent several weeks there, comparing the EOW book to their index. That's how I identified the 12 they missed, and also found that the surrogate court index missed 4 that are in the EOW book. There is no abstract in the EOW book for 12 of them, and you will find no probate info for those 12 at Orange County Genealogical Society. You can only get details for those 12 at surrogate court. I can get copies of any probate record from 1787 - 2010. Contact me direct if you want some. Marty Irons Goshen NY k2mi@frontiernet.net

Marty, As far as the Orange County *surrogate* court records go, would they also include adoptions or placement of children? I am thinking along the lines if a parent died, without a will, and the child(ren) were placed in the custody of someone else. Pre-1800, was this common in O.C., or did our folks just not bother to go through the legalities? Mark

The surrogate court in Goshen has many guardianships. Each child would have a separate record. They are one-page documents, naming the child, one (sometimes two) parent(s), and who was appointed guardian and in which town the guardian lived. Nothing else. Once, when checking the index for a will, I found 5 guardianships for the same surname immediately after a letter of administration, and copied them. The person to whom I mailed all of it said "It was like opening buried treasure - they were all from my family". So if you look for guardianships, look at the index for the same surname for the same or immediately previous year(s). In general, the records 1787-1825 are very skimpy, with many probates only having one type of record. After that, the index might show 2 or more types. Decrees can be very helpful, and might name family members not mentioned in wills. Letters of administration are one-page documents, given when no will was found, naming the person appointed to handle the estate of the deceased. Not much info, but if there is a letter of administration you know that you don't need to waste time looking for a will. I can get copies of any probate records...wills, letters testamentary, letters of administration, guardianships, inventories and/or decrees, 1787-2010. If you want copies of >>> Orange County NY <<< probate records, please contact me direct. Marty Irons k2mi@frontiernet.net