Recently I was asked to get copies of 3 wills at Orange County Surrogate Court in Goshen NY. The requestor included name, liber and page for each will. She had gotten them from the Sampubco list of available wills. Fortunately, she included the years of death for each, because when I went to surrogate court, the names for those libers and pages were correct...but the years of death were way off. If I had copied the ones cited all 3 would have been for the wrong people. So I spent 2 hours at surrogate court, creating an index (see below) showing which years are included for each liber from 1787 to 1900, by checking date of probate for the first and last entries for each liber. Feel free to pass this on to anyone who might get some help from it. Marty Irons Goshen NY k2mi@frontiernet.net ----------------------------------------------------- Index of years of wills at Orange County Surrogate Court in Goshen New York Prepared by Marty Irons Goshen NY, January 2010 Liber First Last Last (book) year year page A 1787 1797 462 B 1797 1803 368 C 1803 1807 459 D 1807 1812 553 E 1813 1815 364 F 1816 1822 428 G 1822 1825 303 H 1825 1829 548 I 1829 1832 550 J 1833 1837 534 K 1837 1840 535 L 1840 1842 517 M 1842 1844 530 N 1845 1846 522 O 1846 1848 651 P 1848 1849 426 Q 1849 1851 470 R 1850 1852 439 S 1852 1853 526 T 1853 1854 400 U 1854 1855 419 V 1855 1857 448 W 1856 1858 451 X 1858 1859 520 Y 1859 1860 499 Z 1859 1861 751 1 1830 1835 528 2 1835 1837 248 27 1861 1863 750 28 1863 1864 752 29 1865 1866 753 30 1866 1867 758 31 1867 1868 754 32 1868 1870 552 33 1868 1871 572 34 1871 1873 552 35 1873 1874 838 36 1871 1874 452 37 1874 1874 453 38 1875 1876 450 39 1876 1877 452 40 1877 1877 445 41 1878 1878 451 42 1879 1880 450 43 1880 1881 455 44 1881 1882 450 45 1882 1883 450 46 1883 1884 461 47 1884 1885 460 48 1885 1886 458 49 1886 1887 458 50 1887 1888 461 51 1887 1888 460 52 1888 1889 459 53 1889 1890 460 54 1890 1891 465 55 1891 1892 465 56 1892 1892 460 57 1892 1893 459 58 1893 1894 462 59 1894 1895 460 60 1895 1896 460 61 1896 1897 459 62 1896 1897 459 63 1897 1897 459 64 1897 1898 460 65 1898 1898 459 66 1898 1899 462 67 1899 1900 460 Note overlap of years. Libers 1 and 2 overlap libers I and J. There are no libers 3 to 26. The highest liber is Liber 218; 1990 - 1991. From liber 68 to 218 there are approximately two years per three books. I will not attempt to index any will libers after 1900.

Hey! Another example of Mr Irons' nicety! A question, though - that gap between Libers 2 & 27 - I assume this means that the records are missing, destroyed, or otherwise unavailable to the public? I have a few really stupid questions about will and probate in general, about which I know absolutely NOTHING, as you are about to discover. - so, DUMB BUNNY ALERT! It seems like many people of the 18th & 19th centuries made wills no matter how modest their bequeaths were. I can never find wills online for relatives into the 20th C, though (not that I ever found wills for relatives dying before the 20th C!). Does this indicate a trend away from will-making or are these more recent documents just not transcribed, scanned, or otherwise Internetted? I went to the Historical society of Middletown to look at a published collections of wills. I think it was a paperback version of 'Early Orange County Wills (1731 - 1830)'. When no will is found in the index, is that a good basis for thinking there is no will or is the book incomplete? Women who died while their husbands still lived didn't seem to go in for will-making. Is this true or is my "observation" skewed? Is this a result of the notion that the husband owns all property, including his wife's?  When people died without a will, their estate (even modest ones?) went through the probate process - property of the deceased was inventoried and divided among survivors. Do these records exist for Orange County, too? I assume this process is still in place today? What happened to people who left no land - were they probated, too, or was/is this process reserved for land-holders?  I know a little about a lot of things, but in this area, I'm totally befuddled. Thank you, Julia --- On Fri, 1/15/10, Marty <k2mi@frontiernet.net> wrote: ...I spent 2 hours at surrogate court, creating an index (see below) showing which years are included for each liber from 1787 to 1900... Marty [...]           2   1835   1837    248 [???]          27   1861   1863    750 [...]