Probate records are sworn documents that go beyond the will to show how the estate was settled. These records offer insight even when persons left no will. They may reveal names, relationships, date of death, items being sold, names of buyers, final distribution, money due to the estate, and more. Probate records are especially valuable for researchers in the difficult field of black genealogy. Slave names may be traced from estate to estate. The early nineteenth-century Edgefield District, South Carolina, probate records are arranged by the initial of last name of the decedent. Thus, although this volume contains abstracts of surnames beginning with "B" and "C," the thirty-three page index links the decedents to surnames from Abney to Zinn. Names of sons and daughters-in-law, legatees, securities, guardians, witnesses, officials, debtors, purchasers, adjoining property owners, and other persons connect the decedents to other families.
Carol Wells
2006, 5½x8½, paper, index, 140 pp.
ISBN: 9780788435812
101-W3581
