Establishing family relationships is a critical part of building a family tree. The further back in time one goes, the more difficult this becomes. Before 1790 there are very few census records and most do not list family members. However, there is one type of record that is common back to the earliest known records in Europe and the US. Wills have been written to direct property inheritance for more than 1000 years. In many cases, the spouse and children of the testator are listed with the property they are to inherit.

I have an ancestor, Mary Landrum, who died in 1754 in Essex County, Virginia. Luckily, she wrote a will that survived to this day. One of the primary goals in her case was to direct the inheritance of property she and her husband James had received from her father, William Brown. Her husband had pre-deceased her, so now she was directing which of her children were to receive this property. She also lists all her children that were alive at the time she wrote the will in 1751 plus the married names of her daughters. This allows family connections to be verified and additional research to be completed with the new information. Also, her will provided me a confirmation her father’s name was William and her step-mother was Elizabeth. Before this, I was under the assumption her mother was Elizabeth! So, more research is needed to confirm the correct mother.

Since will and other probate records are so important in proving land titles, great care has gone in to preserving these records. Most county court houses maintain recent probate records. Older records have been published, microfilmed, indexed and are available on-line through state historical libraries or through database services such as ancestry.com or familysearch.org. For more information, visit www.joelongbooks.com