Regular Meeting of East Texas Genealogical Society, Tyler, TX Saturday, June 10, 2006 Tyler Public Library - Taylor Auditorium 2:00 p.m. Speaker: Don Raney Program: "Wills and the Probate Process" East Texas Genealogical Society will hold it regular monthly meeting on Saturday, June 10th at 2:00 p.m. at the Tyler Public Library in the Taylor Auditorium featuring Don Raney. Mr. Raney will present a program called "Wills and the Probate Process." If your ancestor was testate - died with a will, his heirs presented his will to the probate court and requested appointment of an executor. If your ancestor was intestate - died without a will, the principal heir usually petitions the court to appoint an administrator. The probate court assigns an identifying number to the estate and a probate packet is created for the court. The probate packet will contain the will, letters testamentary, inventory of the estate, list of beneficiaries, records of public sale, deeds, invoices, receipts and a final accounting of the disposition of the estate. You should begin your search for probate records in the county where your ancestor died and usually owned property. In most jurisdictions, all of the probate records will be in one series of court books and the probate records may be intermingled with other court records. The older probate records in some counties have been abstracted and published. The best sources for published probate records are county libraries, the home pages for individual counties on US GenWeb, the LDS Library online card catalog, PERSI, and the online card catalogs for the appropriate state libraries. Mr. Raney is a sixth generation Texan who has been an active genealogist for twenty-five years. He teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced genealogy courses at Richmond College He is a past director of the Dallas Genealogy Society and GENTECH and a life member of the San Jacinto Descendants. He is the author of Martin Varner, Texas Pioneer: 1785-1844. He has been a speaker at numerous conferences and society meetings throughout the state. The Computer Interest Group of the East Texas Genealogical Society will not meet this month. Information on upcoming programs can be found at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~txetgs/meetings.html East Texas Genealogical Society represent six counties which are Anderson, Gregg, Henderson, Panola, Rusk and Smith counties. ETGS publishes the "East Texas Family Records" four times a year which features articles and records concerning our six counties and a monthly newsletter "The Bulletin" which features information about our society, things of interest to our members and information about our six counties. ETGS has began a First Families of East Texas covering our six counties. To find out about this program go to following link: http://www.rootsweb.com/~txetgs/FirstFamilies/firstfam.html For more information, you may contact me at scottfitzgerald@tyler.net or go to: http://www.rootsweb.com/~txetgs/ Submitted by Scott Fitzgerald, 1st Vice-President.