Hi all, I was just poking around the Essex County wills, and I found that, in 1653 my ancestor, William AVERILL, starts out his will with, "being weake in bodye but of perfect memorye", and then he goes on to leave 5 shillings to each child, and the rest of his estate to his wife, Abigail! Of the twentyfive or more wills that I opened, ALL BUT ONE used the words memory, sense or understnading, with the vast majority being, "of perfect memory"!! Many of these were written 15 or MORE years before the "Witch Hunts" of 1692, so the phrase was obviously just common at the time Giles Corey wrote his will. Also, there does seem to be quite a few that leave the majority of their estates to their wives, so that must not have been as unusual as we might have thought!! Also, for those of you who are doing your family history and have the time and the patience, it might be worth the effort to browse through the main <A HREF="http://www.rootsweb.com/~maessex/wills/"> WILL page</A> (http://www.rootsweb.com/~maessex/wills/) as MANY of these wills list the names of sons-in-law and/or grandchildren, which might tie in family relationships that you were previously unaware of!!! HAPPY HUNTING! Joan