Erin, In the beginning of many counties recorded wills and other records related to the probate process into large books, usually know as will books. The same thing was done with deeds. The volume you are seeing is the book that the will was recorded in. The volumes may be numbered or they may start with a letter of the alphabet. When they filled book Z, most counties started over again with A and added a number after the letter. What was done with the original will depended on the laws of the state. Early on most will were not retained. Later they may have recorded the will in the will book and also retained the original will in a probate file. Even later will books were done away with and probate files were created and the will was placed in the probate package. Chuck Mason -----Original Message----- From: transitional-genealogists-forum-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:transitional-genealogists-forum-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Erin J Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2013 5:39 PM To: Transitional-Genealogists-Forum@rootsweb.com Subject: [TGF] Will questions Help, I'm looking for a will to transcribe for practice. This is a basic beginning question. I've found alot of wills on Family Search and some other County sites.   They all seem to be taken from volumes. I thought that wills were individual documents.   Are the wills in the volumes held by the Counties, copies of the originals? or duplicate copies and the family has the original?   I'm not sure where to go to ask this questions. It just seems odd to me that they are all in volumes?   If this is a "it depends" question, please let me know where to find more information on Wills.   Thank you,     Erin The Transitional Genealogists List was created to provide a supportive environment for genealogists to learn best practices as they transition to professional level work. Please respect the kind intentions of this list. ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message