Probate records, detailing the settlement of the estates of deceased New Yorkers, are one of the state's most valuable genealogical sources. In May 1787 the state established the present system of Surrogate’s Courts, one in each county.
Since that date, most probate records in New York have been produced by these courts, and the types of records kept in each county have been essentially the same. For more on the Surrogate’s Court records (and those of other state courts that handled probate matters after 1787) see New York Probate Records Since 1787.
Before 1787, probate in New York (and its predecessor, New Netherland) was handled for some 150 years by officials or official bodies with varying titles and jurisdictions.
While this presents the researcher with a confusing mix of probate sources, the importance of these records to pre-1787 New York genealogical research makes it essential to understand what those sources are, and how to access them.
This article describes the pre-1787 New York probate records and the forms in which they are currently available to researchers.
Some Historical Background
The Dutch Colony
Under Roman-Dutch law, which was the legal system in New Netherland, a will or testament was normally recorded while the testator was still living, by either a notary or an official of the colony, and in the presence of witnesses. An ordinance of 1646 declared void any testament not written by “the Secretary or other authorized person. . . . unless by necessity it should be impossible to call on such person.”
When the testator died, no further proof or probate was necessary for the terms of the will to be carried out. This differed markedly from English law (and present-day New York law), under which the will is recorded following the testator’s death, after being proved by the testimony of the witnesses and admitted to probate by a judge.
Another marked difference between the Dutch and English legal systems involved the treatment of women. An English woman could not, except in extremely rare cases, make a will as long as she was married. Dutch women could do so, usually in the form of a joint will with their husbands. It was also common among the Dutch to treat daughters and sons equally in distributing the estate, whereas English distributions usually favored the sons.
Both systems showed concern for the inheritances of orphaned children, but the Dutch had officials called orphanmasters who were charged with protecting those inheritances when either the mother or father (or both) died.
English settlers in New Netherland were required to conform to the inheritance laws of the Netherlands, until the English conquered New Netherland in 1664 and imposed English law. For many years after that the Dutch in the colony were allowed to continue to make and record their wills according to their own custom, but that practice eventually died out.
For more on Dutch legal customs and their survival see David E. Narrett, Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), also the brief but pertinent comments by Berthold Fernow in his introductions to “Register of Walewyn Van der Veen” and Calendar of Wills (see citations below). See also Edmund B. O’Callaghan, Laws & Ordinances of New Netherland 1638-1674 (Albany, 1868), pp. 108, 281, 467.
The English Colony
The new colony (later province) of New York, created in 1664, included some English settlements which had not been part of New Netherland, and their local records contain a few earlier wills (see Suffolk County, below). The laws establishing New York provided that wills could be proved (and administrations granted in cases of intestacy) at the Court of Assizes in New York City (the seat of the colonial government) or in local Courts of Sessions. Wills and administrations from the Assizes and many of those from the Sessions courts were forwarded to a “Court of Record” in New York City and entered in first liber of what would become the largest collection of New York probate records (see Records of the Colony/Province/State: New York, below).
Those records of the Court of Assizes that survive include references to some wills or administrations; see Records of the Court of Assizes for the Colony of New York 1665-1682, New York Historical Manuscripts: English, edited by Peter R. and Florence A. Christoph (Baltimore, 1983). For records of the various Courts of Sessions see County Records, below.
In 1686 authority over estates was transferred to the Governor, acting as judge of the Prerogative Office or Court, though in practice the Governor usually delegated this authority to other officials, some of whom were called Surrogates. The Prerogative Court remained in existence until the end of the Revolution (1783) and had complete control over probate in the counties of Westchester, New York, Kings, Richmond, and (until 1752) Orange, but a 1692 law provided that in the “remote” counties more distant from New York City judges (usually of the county Court of Common Pleas) could prove wills and issue letters of administration.
Once proof was established, if an estate was valued at less than £50 the county court could retain jurisdiction, but estates valued at £50 or more had to be forwarded to New York City for further action by the Governor and Prerogative Court.
New York State
In 1778 the new State of New York transferred the powers of the Prerogative Court to the newly-created Court of Probates, which at first met in Poughkeepsie and had jurisdiction only over those counties under American control. At the end of 1783 it was moved to New York City and extended its authority to the entire state. When the present system of county Surrogate’s Courts was created in 1787, the jurisdiction of the Court of Probates was restricted (see New York Probate Records Since 1787).
Additional detail on the English court system and the early state system will be found in:
Royden Woodward Vosburgh, "Surrogate's Courts and Records in the Colony and State of New York, 1664-1847," The Quarterly Journal of the New York Historical Association 3 (1922):105-16,
and Rosalie Fellows Bailey, Guide to Genealogical and Biographical Sources for New York City (Manhattan) 1783-1898 (1954, reprint 1998), pp. 3-7.
Dr. Kenneth Scott's introductions to his books cited in this paper also contain pertinent information. For the 1692 law see Colonial Laws of New York, 1:300.
Records of the Colony/Province/State
Almost all of the pre-1787 probate records utilized by genealogists have been microfilmed, mostly by the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) for the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, and are accessible there and through the network of Family History Centers.
The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society acquired copies of most of these films, now easily accessible as part of the NYG&B Collection at the New York Public Library (NYPL), Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History and Genealogy, at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan.
A third large collection is at the New York State Archives in Albany, where most of the original colonial records are now housed.
In the remainder of this paper, films of the NYG&B Collection are identified with their NYPL titles and call numbers, FHL films by film number (often the first number in a series), and New York State Archives records and films by a series number.
Other libraries having collections of these films include the Archives at the Queens Library in Jamaica, New York, and the DAR Library in Washington, D.C. At this writing almost none of the pre-1787 records are to be found online, except in published abstracts or indexes.
Paper sources cited in this paper, whether books, journals, or manuscripts, may be found in library catalogs such as that of New York Public Library, or the Family History Library, or in digitized form at various websites.
Two publications which appeared after this paper was first written may contain some additional information of value to the researcher:
Gordon L. Remington, FASG, New York State Probate Records, A Genealogist’s Guide to Testate and Intestate Records (Boston: NEHGS, 2002, revised edition 2011);
and the New York State Archives’ paper Probate Records in the New York State Archives (Albany, 1997).
New Netherland
Wills and other matters relating to the settlement of estates will be found mixed in with other records in several New Netherland sources, starting with Register of the Provincial Secretary, New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch, vols. 1-3 (1974). Volume 1 can be found online. Brief abstracts of relevant items in the Register and other official records of the colony are found in the Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State, Albany, N.Y., Part I, Dutch Manuscripts 1638-1664, edited by Edmund B. O'Callaghan (1865).
Other sources to check are
- Register of Salomon Lachaire, Notary Public of New Amsterdam 1661-1662, New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch (1978)
- Minutes of the Orphanmasters Court of New Amsterdam, 1655-63 (2 vols., 1902-07) available in the NYG&B elibrary
- Minutes of the Orphanmasters Court of New Amsterdam, 1663-68 (Baltimore, 1976)
- "Register of Walewyn Van der Veen, Notary Public [of New Amsterdam 1662-64],” in Minutes of the Orphanmasters . . . 1655-63, 2:13-72.
Some local notarial or secretarial records from Beverwijck (Albany) and Wiltwijck (Kingston) also survive from this period (see Albany and Ulster counties, below).
A few estate matters may also be found in pre-1665 town records of English settlements in New Netherland (e.g. Gravesend, abstracted Record 47:161f.).
Colonial New York
The laws that gave control over so many estates from throughout the province to courts in New York City, beginning in 1665, caused the formation of a large centralized collection of wills, administrations and inventories. Probate research in colonial New York should always start with this centralized collection, which is described below and in the table at the end of this paper.
These centralized records were kept in New York City as long as it remained the capital of New York. When the capital was moved to Albany in 1797, all the probate records were moved there, but it soon became apparent that this created a problem for the Surrogates in the southern counties who needed access to pre-1797 records.
A 1799 law required that loose documents pertaining to the Southern District of the state, as well as almost all of the bound volumes (libers), be returned to New York City and placed in the custody of the New York County Surrogate's Court. This was accomplished in 1802, and explains why that court, which has jurisdiction over only one county, and which did not exist prior to 1787, came to hold records for 1665-1787 from all parts of the state.
A smaller statewide collection, largely records from Orange, Dutchess, and counties to the north, remained at Albany under the Court of Probates, later coming under the Court of Appeals. Due to carelessness in implementing the 1799 law, some documents for the Southern District remained at Albany, while others which should have stayed there ended up in New York City.
Sometimes the pre-1787 records which were returned to the New York County Surrogate’s Court are incorrectly referred to as New York City records, and those which remained at Albany are incorrectly identified as local Albany records. Both collections actually cover residents of all the pre-1787 counties, and were originally records of the provincial Prerogative Court in New York City and the state Court of Probates in New York City and (from 1797) Albany.
In the 1960s and 70s, many records held by the New York County Surrogate's Court and the Court of Appeals in Albany were transferred to the Historic Documents Collection at Queens College, Flushing, New York, and much of the microfilming of those records by the GSU was done at that repository.
In 1982 and 1985 most of the records were moved from Queens to the State Archives in Albany, where they are now preserved (a few records went to New York City repositories). Since almost all of these records have been microfilmed, in most cases it is no longer necessary for the researcher to have access to the original (i.e., paper) documents. The table at the end of this paper identifies the microfilm copies, as well as printed finding aids such as indexes and abstracts.
Where to Begin: The NYHS Abstracts of Wills (WNYHS)
A search of the centralized collection of pre-1787 probate records should begin with the first item in the table at the end of this article, the seventeen volumes of abstracts published in 1893-1909 by The New-York Historical Society and cited in Record articles from 1933 to 1996 (and here) as WNYHS.
These abstracts cover wills and administrations, recorded from 1665 to 1800, that were in the custody of the New York County Surrogate’s Court at the end of the 19th century. The published abstracts are found in many libraries. Volumes 1-11 are online at Ancestry.com (though misnamed “New York City Wills”), and all 17 volumes are online in Brigham Young University (BYU) Library’s Family History Archives (in the FHL catalog, the abstracts are first title under New York–Probate Records, and there are links there to the copies at BYU). All the volumes are also available on a CD-ROM published by Heritage Books, Inc.
Genealogists often hear that these abstracts contain errors and it’s better to go straight to the original records. This can be a serious, time-wasting mistake.
The abstracts are largely correct, and they offer the quickest means of determining whether a will or administration is pertinent to one’s research. The indexes in the individual volumes of the series, or searches to the electronic versions, also offer the only means of finding all the names mentioned in these records. The court indexed the wills and administrations only by the names of the decedents, excluding the heirs, executors, witnesses and other persons named in the documents, all of whom will appear in the indexes to the abstracts.
The earlier volumes of the abstracts are more prone to error, because the abstractor, William Smith Pelletreau, was working either from documents in difficult 17th century handwriting, or from later copies made by clerks who had not always read the originals accurately.
The later volumes, abstracted by Pelletreau and others, are more reliable. Volumes 16-17 of the series contain corrections to volumes 1-9 and 11, and some additional errata or corrections are found in volumes 1-2, 4-8, and 12-13. It is very important to consult these corrections, especially if the full text of the will is not going to be examined.
Next Step: Will Libers and Original Wills
Once the abstracts have been checked, what is the next step? If a relevant will has been found, the full text should be examined.
The quickest way to do this is by consulting the appropriate will book, known in New York (at least in the older counties) as a will liber, liber being the Latin word for book, pronounced in New York courthouses as “LYE-ber.”
When a will was admitted to probate, a "conformed" or exact copy was made in the current liber of wills. In the 19th century, for preservation purposes the early libers were re-copied by hand, producing a second set of libers which can be distinguished from the original set because it begins with three double-numbered volumes (1-2, 3-4, and 5-6). The two sets have different pagination, although the second set also shows the pagination of the original. The second set is the one still at the Surrogate's Court, while the original set is at the State Archives. As shown in the table, both sets of libers are on FHL film; NYG&B only acquired the film of the original set, except for five missing original libers for which films from the second set had to be substituted.
Each abstract in the WNYHS series indicates a liber and page where the abstracted document was found. It should be noted that at least in the earlier volumes of the abstracts Pelletreau used the liber and page numbers of the second set, or a copy of that set at The New-York Historical Society.
It should be obvious that for genealogists, the original libers are preferable to the later copies, because the copyists did not always read the old handwriting accurately and may have accidentally missed a key word or two.
In going through the New York County Surrogate's files, Pelletreau found many original wills that had been proved but never recorded in the libers, apparently because the necessary recording fees had not been collected. He abstracted these wills in WNYHS volume 11 and in the Appendices of volumes 1 and 2. There are also some unrecorded wills which escaped Pelletreau's attention (see, for example, Record 80:216-19). To get the full text of an unrecorded will, the next step would be to check the collections of original wills, rather than the libers.
If the original will is available, why bother to check the liber at all? There are several reasons: First, the original wills can often be very difficult to read, particularly due to poor handwriting and bleeding ink; the clerks who kept the libers generally had more legible and consistent handwriting, and their books are in better condition than the loose wills. Second, the libers are widely available on film, but only the first 1,205 of the original pre-1787 wills that have survived have been filmed (to c.1738), the rest being available only at the State Archives where they are being conserved. Third, the libers include records not usually noted on the original will, such as date of probate, swearing of witnesses, and appointment of executors; the probate date is often needed to approximate date of death.
If the liber copy has been read, is it necessary to read the original will as well?
It is desirable to do so, because the original will may have endorsements containing unique data, and there is also always the chance that the clerk who copied the will into the liber did so inaccurately. However, with limited access to the original wills after c.1738, the researcher must often be satisfied with the liber copy alone. Also note that in some cases the original copy of a recorded will has not survived.
The original wills described above are those which were turned over to the New York County Surrogate in under the 1799 law as explained earlier. That left a second collection of original wills in Albany, and they are abstracted in Berthold Fernow’s Calendar of Wills on File and Recorded in the Offices of the Clerk of the Court of Appeals, of the County Clerk at Albany, and of the Secretary of State, 1626-1836 (New York, 1896) and are all available on microfilm.
The original wills from both collections are now in the State Archives. See the table at the end of this article for more details.
Don't Forget to Check for Inventories
Anyone who has done research in other time periods and jurisdictions may be accustomed to finding, in addition to the will, a probate file or packet containing petitions, accountings, distributions and other valuable documents.
Unfortunately, such files do not exist for pre-1787 New York wills, except for inventories which survive in collections at the New York County Surrogate's Court, New-York Historical Society, and State Archives, and are accessible as indicated in the table below (a very few other probate papers survive in the Administration Papers at the State Archives - see the table at the end of this article).
As the inventory was often the first legal procedure taken after a death, its date may be even more genealogically significant than the date of probate. As indicated in the table, some of the inventories have been abstracted, and all are indexed by decedent.
Dying Without a Will: Letters of Administration
When a New Yorker dies intestate (leaving an estate but no will), Letters of Adminstration are issued, appointing an administrator to settle the estate.
At first, copies of these letters were entered in the will libers, but starting in 1743 they were issued on pre-printed forms, copies of which were eventually bound in a separate series of libers as shown in the table at the end of this article. Bonds posted by administrators have also been preserved, as have some other associated papers.
If someone died intestate, it is essential to check all three: letters, bonds, and papers. While none of these documents will give the detail associated with a will, each may contain some unique bit of information, such as an occupation, place of residence, or identity of a relative.
Printed abstracts are available for most of this material, but whenever possible, the accuracy of the abstracts should be verified by consulting the original documents.
In colonial New York it was the practice to appoint executors by giving them Letters of Administration, rather than the Letters Testamentary which have served that purpose since statehood. Letters of Administration issued under such circumstances do not indicate intestacy.
Other Provincial or State-level Sources
In addition to those described in the table at the end of this article, there are some other probate records pertaining to the entire province or state prior to 1787.
For example, nine wills were recorded in the books known as the Secretary's Deeds (or Secretary of State’s Deeds), now in the State Archives (NYPL microfilm *ZI-1239, “Deeds, New York State, 1659-1800”; FHL #947105). A list of these wills is in William A. Eardeley's "Index to Wills of New York State from 1653 to 1815" (NYPL call no. NYGB AZ Loc 09-71, not in FHL catalog), p. 5.
Some documents relating to the settlement of estates are abstracted in the Calendar of Historical Manuscripts in the Office of the Secretary of State, Albany, N.Y., Part II, English Manuscripts 1664-1776, edited by Edmund B. O'Callaghan (1866). The State Archives has the original manuscripts if they survived the 1911 State Library fire, and some (including parts that were destroyed in 1911) have been published.
Wills of New Yorkers proved in Boston 1688-91 while New York was part of the "Dominion of New England" have been abstracted by Henry B. Hoff in the Record 139:266-268 (October 2008). They are recorded in volumes 10 and 13 of Suffolk County (Massachusetts) Probate Records.
Copies of wills, inventories, and other estate papers were often kept by families and are sometimes still in their possession or have ended up in manuscript collections of genealogical and historical societies, museums, or public libraries. These may include wills that were never recorded, and copies of documents which the courts have not retained. In some cases these family holdings have been published in compiled genealogies or genealogical periodicals. The careful researcher will search the appropriate finding aids for such materials.
Guardianships during the British period are not included in the table. Some will be found in the county records listed below.
At the provincial level, guardians were appointed starting in 1691 by the Chancery Court, the records of which are divided between the State Archives (series J0090 and J0059; NYPL *ZI-1347 reels 1-2, “New York Order in Chancery Records”; FHL #017439 & 017418) and the New York County Clerk's Division of Old Records (NYPL *R-USLHG *ZI-1332, “Chancery Court Minutes [New York County]”; FHL #590388; index at the Division, no copy at NYPL, FHL #1204888).
Dr. Kenneth Scott abstracted guardianship records from both of these collections for his Records of the Chancery Court Province and State of New York, Guardianships 1691-1815 (1971). In his introduction Scott gives a concise history of the court and its records, and each of his abstracts cites the original record on which it is based.
Records Outside New York
New Yorkers sometimes died as residents of other colonies, or owning property in other colonies. In such cases, their wills or administrations may be recorded outside the state. The most likely sources in this regard are:
- Abstracts of Wills published in New Jersey Archives, first series, vols. 1-7 covering 1670-1790
- Probate records in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, especially for districts or counties along the New York border and Long Island Sound
- Lothrop Withington's "New York Gleanings in England," Record vols. 34-39
- The works of Peter Wilson Coldham, beginning with his American Wills & Administrations in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1610-1857 (Baltimore, 1989).
Conversely, New York probate records include many entries for residents of other states, colonies or countries, especially merchants and mariners.
Important to Note: Settlements Occurring Post-1787
Although this paper cuts off at 1787, it is important to remember that settlement of the estate of a person who died before May 1787 might continue after that date, and references to it might therefore be found in more than one court.
County Records
Following are descriptions of probate records found at the county level, as opposed to those sent to the provincial or state-level courts.
The counties listed are those created in 1683 (see note under Albany County for additional counties created late in the colonial period). The records are those generated at first by the Courts of Sessions (starting before the counties were created), and later by the county Courts of Common Pleas (see “The English Colony,” above).
Where there were town governments in the 17th century, wills or other records relating to estates may also be found in the earliest town records.
It is also important to remember that many New Yorkers transferred all property to their heirs before they died, leaving no estate that was subject to the legal process. This means that there may be deeds on record that spell out some family relationships.
Genealogists sometimes tend to give land records a low priority in their research, but the potential importance of that resource in this case cannot be overemphasized. (This refers to actual deeds, and not to wills that were recorded in the deed books in some counties.)
Albany County
Beginning in the Dutch period, long before the county was created, local courts dealt with some estate matters, as shown in Minutes of the Court of Rensselaerswyck 1648-1652 (Albany, 1922); Minutes of the Court of Fort Orange and Beverwyck 1652-1656 (Albany, 1920); and after the English conquest, Minutes of the Court of Albany, Rensselaerswyck and Schenectady [the area’s Court of Sessions] 1668-1685, 3 volumes (Albany, 1926-1932), all translated and edited by state archivist A.J.F. Van Laer. In addition, Fort Orange court records for 1657 and 1660 are found in the New York Colonial Manuscripts (Dutch) in the State Archives, calendared by O’Callaghan (see above). Wills in the court records are abstracted in Fernow’s Calendar of Wills, but since he did his work before any of these records were published, he cites the original volumes (as Albany County “Proceedings of Magistrates” or “Court Minutes”). The 1652-1656, 1657 and 1660 court records have now been re-translated by Charles T. Gehring for the New Netherland Project and published as Fort Orange Court Minutes, 1652-1660 (Syracuse University Press, 1990).
The Albany County deed books also begin in the Dutch period before the creation of the county, and up to the time of Revolution they are referred to as books of deeds and wills, because they include some inventories and other legal documents relating to the settlement of estates. The first two of these books (called A and B) have been published by the New Netherland Project as Fort Orange Records 1656-1678 (Syracuse, 2000) and Fort Orange Records 1654-1679 (Syracuse, 2009), the first translated by Charles T. Gehring and the second by Gehring and Janny Venema. All the original volumes 1656-1774 are also available on microfilm (NYPL *ZI-1198 reels 82-87, “Deeds, Albany County, N.Y.”; FHL #463348).
Wills and other documents relating to estates can also be found in Early Records of the City and County of Albany, by Jonathan Pearson, edited by A.J.F. Van Laer: volume 3, Notarial Papers 1 & 2 1660-1696 (1918), and volume 4, . . . Wills, 1681-1765 (1919). The wills in this last volume are full translations of Dutch-language wills found in Albany County Wills volumes 1 & 2 (1691-1833) at the Office of the County Clerk (no microfilm at NYPL; FHL #463364), which are the wills and administrations processed by the county Court of Common Pleas under the law of 1692. Wills from these two volumes and the Notarial Papers are abstracted in Fernow's Calendar of Wills. For some additional miscellaneous probate records of this county see Using The Dutch Settlers Society of Albany Yearbook.
Note: Several counties were created from Albany just before the Revolution: Cumberland in 1766 and 1768, Gloucester in 1770, and Tryon and Charlotte in 1772. Cumberland and Gloucester disappeared with the creation of the Vermont republic in 1777-78, and in 1784 Tryon and Charlotte were renamed Montgomery and Washington, respectively. A law of 1772 (Colonial Laws of New York, 5:414) gave these four counties the right to prove wills and grant letters of administration, under the same terms given to the other “remote” counties in 1692, but it would appear that all wills and administrations were then sent to New York City, as pre-1787 local probate records for these counties have not been found (the “Montgomery County, New York, Intestates,” Record 59 [1928]: 83-85, are those recorded in the Court of Probates in New York City 1784-87). Columbia County was formed from Albany in 1786, but its probate records also begin in 1787.
Dutchess County
Although created in 1683, Dutchess was so sparsely populated that it was at first governed as part of Ulster. As it was designated a “remote” county under the 1692 law, the county’s Court of Common Pleas eventually began proving wills and carrying out probate for estates valued at under £50, forwarding the others to New York City. Beginning in 1752 and until 1787 wills were recorded in county wills liber AA (NYPL microfilm *ZI-942, reel 1, “Dutchess County Wills”; FHL #913659). These wills are listed in The Dutchess 4:2:15-16 (December 1976) and were abstracted by Amos Canfield in the Record 61:383-86, 62:58-59, and by Minnie Cowen in "Abstracts of Wills of Dutchess County, New York," vol.1 (1939). Wills may also be found in the county deed books, as shown by Francis J. Sypher, Jr.’s discovery of a 1733 will there (The American Genealogist 84 [2010]:191).
Kings County
From 1665 until Kings County was created in 1683 its territory formed part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. A fragment of the records of the riding’s Court of Sessions is found in John E. Stillwell, Historical and Genealogical Miscellany 1 (1903):224-39. Some wills are in the earliest county deed libers (microfilm *R-USLHG *ZI-1210, “Deeds, Kings County, N.Y.”; FHL #1413189). Along with wills from the early town records, they are indexed in Milton Halsey Thomas and Charles Shepard II, Index to Wills, Administrations and Guardianships of Kings County, New York 1650 to 1850 (1926), and abstracted by David McQueen in Record 47:161-70, 227-32. For other documents in the deed books that may be relevant see abstracts in Record vols. 48 and 54. The town records are at the Municipal Archives of the City of New York, with photocopies of some of them at The Holland Society of New York. The 1692 law ended any local proving or recording of wills, and all further Kings County probate took place in New York City.
New York County. Wills proved in the Mayor's Court (equivalent to the Court of Sessions and later the Court of Common Pleas in other counties) were incorporated into the records of the New York County Surrogate's Court as libers 14A (1688-96 and 1757-64) and 19B (1680-86); both are abstracted in WNYHS (see table). Otherwise probate was handled until 1787 by the provincial Prerogative Court and its successor the state Court of Probates, both located in this county. See also Kenneth Scott, "Appointment of Guardians, Mayor's Court, New York City, 1696-1737," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 56:51-54; the court minutes for these years are on FHL microfilm #1021714-1021722, the originals held by the County Clerk’s Division of Old Records.
Orange County
At first Orange County had a small population concentrated at its south end (now Rockland County), close enough to New York City that it was not one of the “remote” counties granted limited probate authority in 1692. By 1752, however, the northern and western reaches of the county had been settled sufficiently that a law was enacted adding Orange to the “remote” category, giving its judges the power to prove wills and issue letters of administration (Colonial Laws of New York, 3:780-81). However, since there are no county probate records before 1787, all wills and administrations continued to be forwarded to New York City for further action. (See also Ulster County, below, since part of present-day Orange was in Ulster during the colonial period.)
Queens County
From 1665 until Queens County was created in 1683 it was part (with Westchester) of the North Riding of Yorkshire, except for Newtown which was in the West Riding. No records of the North Riding court that met at Jamaica survive, though annotations in the New York City collection indicate that wills were being received from that court; for the West Riding court see Kings County, above. Early town records should also be checked for wills and other relevant items.
County deed libers A and C contain second sections (with separate pagination and indexes) for wills, administrations and guardianships 1683-1790, generated first by the Court of Sessions and then by the Court of Common Pleas (NYPL microfilm *R-USLHG *ZI-1208, reels 1-2, “Deeds, Queens County, N.Y.”; FHL #1414477-78). These were abstracted to 1744 by Amos Canfield in Record vol. 65 (1934). Both the film and abstracts were made from a 19th century copy of Liber A, as the original liber was missing; it was subsequently found, is now at the Municipal Archives, and may reveal errors in the 19th century copy (see NYG&B Newsletter 3:19, Fall 1992).
William A. Eardeley’s “Records in the Office of the County Clerk at Jamaica, Long Island, New York, 1680-1781, Wills and Administrations, Guardians, and Inventories,” 2 typewritten volumes (1913, 1918), contains a complete index to these records to 1781 and abstracts of many of them including some of those in Liber C after 1744. The deeds portions of the early deed libers should also be checked for relevant records (same NYPL and FHL films noted above); abstracts of deed libers A-D by Alexander Lobel (FHL #17873; NYG&B film copy not in NYPL catalog) are a useful finding aid. (All of these Queens County sources may also be found in the Archives division of the Queens Library.)
Richmond County (Staten Island)
From 1665 until the county was created in 1683, Staten Island was part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, initially subject to the riding’s Court of Sessions at Gravesend, minutes of which (see Kings County, above) refer to at least one Staten Island will; later the island had its own court, records of which (in Liber A of deeds) do not appear to be relevant. The earliest county deed libers do, however, contain an occasional inventory (NYPL microfilm *R-USLHG *ZI-1215, “Deeds, Richmond County, N.Y.”, and FHL #941488 both begin with liber B; for liber A see Patricia Law Hatcher, “Richmond County Deeds ‘Liber A’ – A Mystery Solved,” NYG&B Newsletter 10 [1999]: 7-8). Otherwise all of the county’s probate records are found in the New York City collection; Charlotte M. Hix, Staten Island Wills and Letters of Administration (Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, 1993), includes all the Richmond County abstracts in WNYHS.
Suffolk County
Before becoming part of New York in 1664, the towns of what is now Suffolk County were affiliated with Connecticut (or in the case of Southold, New Haven Colony), and town records contain a few wills from that period. Diane F. Perry’s article "Suffolk Wills Where Are They?," Suffolk County Historical Society Register 3 (1978):66-69, provides a good overview of the county’s early probate records. The first two wills recorded by the English in New York City were from Southampton and East Hampton, and they were followed by others, but beginning in 1670 many wills were proved and recorded in the Court of Sessions of the East Riding of Yorkshire, which became Suffolk County in 1683. For full transcriptions of these wills (and inventories) see Thomas W. Cooper, The Records of the Court of Sessions of Suffolk County in the Province of New York, 1670-1688 (1993); Suffolk County Historical Society has a film copy of the original book, which is held by the County Clerk. Some additional wills proved in the Court of Sessions, and some inventories, were recorded from 1687 to 1693 in Liber A of Suffolk County deeds, and are transcribed by Cooper in an appendix to his book cited above; Liber A is also available on microfilm (*ZI-1213 reel 2, “Deeds, Suffolk County, N.Y.”; FHL #1871776). For a list of the inventories in the Sessions book and Liber A see Record 12:132-34.
In 1691 Col. William “Tangier” Smith was made Judge of the Prerogative Court for Suffolk County. The County Clerk has the records of Col. Smith’s court 1691-1703 (the so-called “Lester Will Book”), and William Smith Pelletreau’s transcript of those records was published as Early Long Island Wills of Suffolk County (1897). After 1703 and until 1787 Suffolk wills continued to be proved locally but were recorded and subject to probate in New York City.
Ulster County
Gustave Anjou’s Ulster County, N. Y., Probate Records . . . , 2 volumes (1906), abstracts wills, administrations and inventories from three local sources, beginning in the Dutch period: first, papers of the local Secretary and court records including the Kingston Court of Sessions, in Dutch, 1663-84, those for 1661-75 published (in English) as Kingston Papers, New York Historical Manuscripts: Dutch (Baltimore, 1976), full English translation 1658-1709 searchable at County Clerk Archives website; second, the county deed libers I(alias AA)-X, 1685-1789 (NYPL *ZI-1211, “Deeds, Ulster County, N.Y.”; FHL #944740); and third, unrecorded papers in Estate Boxes, Surrogate's Office, Kingston, 1763-80 (FHL #941436). Under the 1692 law, from that year until 1787 estates valued at over £50 were recorded and processed in New York City, and those wills and administrations are also abstracted by Anjou.
Westchester County
Some early estate matters are found in Minutes of the Court of Sessions (1657-1696) Westchester County, edited by Dixon Ryan Fox (Westchester County Historical Society, 1924), but after that court ceased to function all Westchester wills and administrations were recorded and processed in New York City. Almost all of the wills abstracted in William Smith Pelletreau, Early Wills of Westchester County, New York from 1664 to 1784 (1898), are from the New York City collection (Pelletreau’s abstracts of the same wills in WNYHS are generally superior).
Wills, Administrations and Inventories from All Counties,
Filed in New York City 1665-1787
Record Description
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Microfilm Copies*at NYPL (NYGB), FHL, State Archives |
Abstracts & Printed Indexes |
|---|---|---|
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Will Libers: (original set) Libers 1-39 plus 14A and 19B (but 4, 7, 9, 18, 28 are missing). At State Archives, series J0043-92. (second set, re-copied in 19th century) First three libers called "1-2," "3-4," "5-6," then 7 through 39 plus 14A, 19B (complete set). At N.Y. County Surrogate’s Court, Manhattan. During the Revolution, wills from counties still under British rule were recorded by the Prerogative Court and can be found in libers 31 and 32, while wills from counties under American rule were recorded by the Court of Probates and are in liber 33 (see introduction to volume 9 of Abstracts of Wills). |
NYPL: Liber 1, *R-USLHG *ZI-921, “Probate Records 1743-1910, New York County,” reels 2-3; Rest of original set (with gaps), *R-USLHG *ZI-929, “Original Will Libers in the Surrogate Office [New York County]”; Libers 3-4, 7, 9, 18, and 28 from second set, to fill gaps in original set, *R-USLHG *ZI-924, “Record of Wills”; Index to second set, *R-USLHG *ZI-928, “Index to Wills [New York County]” FHL #907920 or 478745 (original liber 1), 497592 (rest of original set), 874514 (complete second set plus index) |
Abstracts of Wills on File in the Surrogate’s Office, City of New York, 17 vols., Collections of The New-York Historical Society 1892-1908, Record abbreviation 1933-96 WNYHS (see description above). Each volume has an every-name index; Arthur C.M. Kelly compiled an overall index to decedents, Index, Names of Principals, Abstracts of Wills on File . . . (1981). “Index of Wills for New York County (New York City) from 1662-1850,” by Ray C. Sawyer, 3 vols., 1931, based on the original set. Easier to use than the Court’s index. (State Archives gives this the more accurate title “Index of New York State Wills 1662-1850, on File at the Office of the Surrogate for New York County.”) If only a 19th century copy is available for the liber shown in the abstracts or Sawyer’s index, the original page number given by Sawyer will be found handwritten in the left hand margins. The index at the front of the copied liber will give a new page number which is stamped at the top of the page. |
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Original Wills, NYC set Second sub-series (c.1739-1787) not yet filmed. |
NYPL *R-USLHG *ZI-923, “Original Wills Filed in New York County Surrogate’s Office” (will nos. 1-1205, to c.1738) FHL #501139 (wills 1-180), 501143 (wills 181-1205) Each will is preceded by a card containing its number, often very difficult to read. |
Abstracts: See Will Liber abstracts, above. Indexes: by Kenneth Scott, National Genealogical Society Quarterly [NGSQ] 51:90-99, 174-78, 185 (wills 1-1205, to c. 1738); Julius Bloch, Leo Hershkowitz and Kenneth Scott, NGSQ 54:98-124, 55:119-45 (second sub-series, to 1829). Indexes must be used to determine will number. |
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Original Wills, Albany set Wills originally filed in New York City and kept at the Court of Probates in Albany after the 1802 division (see above). Includes some not recorded in libers. At State Archives, series J0038-82. Wills mostly from Dutchess, Orange and counties to the north, but some are duplicates of wills in the NYC set. Both NYPL and FHL incorrectly catalog these wills as records of Albany County (Surrogate’s Court). They are statewide records of the Prerogative Court and Court of Probates. |
NYPL *ZI-947, “Record of Wills Recorded at Albany 1629-1802” FHL #481435 Both NYPL and FHL catalogs add an “A” [for “Albany”] to Fernow’s codes [see right], so that, for example, Fernow’s will coded S 28 becomes AS 28. |
Abstracts: Most but not all are included in Berthold Fernow, Calendar of Wills (see full citation in text, above). His abstracts of this “Albany set” of original wills are those for which he added a code (in parentheses) consisting of the first letter of the last name and a consecutive number. Indexes: Complete indexes to testators are found on the NYPL and FHL microfilm. Fernow indexes those wills that he abstracted. |
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Other Probate Papers are lost, except for inventories and a few records found in the Administration Papers (below). |
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Letters of Administration pre-1743: in Will Libers 1-15, see above. |
See Will Libers, above |
Abstracts: WNYHS volumes 1-3, decedents’ names included in Kelly’s Index (see Will Libers, above, for both). |
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Letters of Administration 1743-87: The libers of letters of administration 1743-83 were created by combining smaller original libers. They are not numbered, but are referred to as libers 1½, 2½, 3½, 4½, or A, B, C, D; and 5½ (also called 1). They contain the letters issued by the Prerogative Court, those for 1776-83 being limited to counties still under British rule. A separate liber 1 contains letters issued by the State Court of Probates 1778-83 in the counties under American rule, followed by libers 2-3 covering 1784-87 for the whole state. (The Court of Probates liber 1 has additional letters 1791-97.) See description of these libers in Record 81:45. All are at N.Y. County Surrogate’s Court. Note that liber 1½ (alias A) contains some administration papers in addition to letters. |
NYPL *R-USLHG *ZI-921, “Probate Records 1743-1910, New York County,” reels 1-2, letters issued by Prerogative Court 1743-83 (libers not identified by either numbers or letters) *R-USLHG *ZI-927, “Letters of Administration: [New York County],” reels 1-3, includes letters issued by Court of Probates 1778-87 *R-USLHG *ZI-922, “Index to Letters of Administration 1743-1910, New York County,” indexes all libers except those covering 1777-83 (see right). FHL #872170 (first five libers identified as A-D and 1 [see left]). For the Court of Probates, liber 1 is on film 017412 (no index), libers 2-3 and index are part of 872170 series. |
Abstracts: WNYHS volumes 3-14 (with a few omissions), except for Court of Probates liber 1; copies of most if not all of the letters from the latter liber are abstracted in Kenneth Scott, Genealogical Data from Administration Papers (1972). Indexes: There are indexes in each WNYHS volume, consolidated in Kelly’s index (see above). See also “Index of the Letters of Administration Filed in New York County from 1743-1875,” by Gertrude A. Barber (1950-51), which duplicates the court’s index (film at left) and covers libers 1½-4½ (1743-74), part of 5½ (1774-76, called liber "1" by Barber), and libers 2-3 (1784-87); Barber indexed the letters by decedent, also giving name of administrator, date, liber and page, and bond book. Barber did not index the remainder of liber 5½ alias “1” (1777-83) or Court of Probates liber 1 (1778-83). All of liber 5½ is indexed in WNYHS vols. 8-9, and Scott’s abstracts serve as a substitute index for liber 1. (Every liber also includes its own index.) |
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Administration Bonds Books |
NYPL *R-USLHG *ZI-921, “Probate Records 1743-1910, New York County,” reels 4-5 FHL #478747-48 State Archives J1033-04 |
Abstracts: Kenneth Scott, Genealogical Data from New York Administration Bonds 1753-1799 (NYG&B, 1969). Indexes: Scott’s abstracts are in alphabetical order by decedent. For the original bonds 1753-1776 use Barber index (above) to determine book, then use index at front of book to find page number. |
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Administration Papers, various documents from c.1700-1823 (or 1825) relating to intestates (and to a few wills). At State Archives, series J0033-82 (alphabetical by decedent). Both NYPL and FHL catalog these papers incorrectly as records of Albany County (Surrogate’s Court). They are statewide records of the Prerogative Court and Court of Probates. |
NYPL *ZI-969, “Original Letters of Administration incl. Inventories of Estates, Albany 1700-1775,” and *ZI-970, “Original Records of Administrations and Inventories of Estates, Albany 1776-1825”; each includes index. FHL #509058 |
Abstracts: Kenneth Scott, Genealogical Data from Administration Papers (1972). Indexes: Scott’s abstracts are alphabetical by decedent, and his index covers other names. There are also two indexes on the microfilm. |
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Inventories in Will Libers: |
See Will Libers, above |
Abstracts: WNYHS (very briefly abstracted if at all). Index: Kenneth Scott, NGSQ 53:133-38. |
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Inventories in Separate Inventory Libers: 1725-53, 1776-86. At N.Y. County Surrogate’s Court. |
NYPL *R-USLHG *ZI-921, “Probate Records 1743-1910, New York County,” reels 3-4 FHL #478746 State Archives J1301-04 and 2301-04 |
Abstracts: none. Index: Kenneth Scott, NGSQ 53:138-41 (to 1753 only). |
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Inventories at NYHS: |
NYHS also has copy on film, not available elsewhere. |
Abstracts: none. Indexes: Kenneth Scott, NGSQ 53:138-43 (see explanation at 53:133); |
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Inventories at Albany: Both NYPL and FHL catalog these inventories incorrectly as records of Albany County (Surrogate’s Court). They are statewide records of the Prerogative Court and Court of Probates. |
NYPL *ZI-959, “Original Inventories of Estates, Albany, dated 1600’s,” and *ZI-960, “Original Inventories of Estates, Albany, dated 1700’s”; both include indexes. FHL #504477, including indexes |
Abstracted: Kenneth Scott & James Owre, Genealogical Data from Inventories of New York Estates 1666-1825 (NYG&B, 1970). Indexed: Kenneth Scott, NGSQ 54:246-59. In Scott and Owre’s book (above), abstracts are alphabetical by decedent, with index to other names. |
*The New York Public Library (NYPL) microfilms are all from the NYG&B Collection, purchased from the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) and identical to the corresponding FHL films. All NYPL films are in the Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History and Genealogy. Numbers preceded by *R-USLHG are in the self-service drawers.
For the Family History Library (FHL), Salt Lake City, in most cases the film numbers shown are the first of a multiple-reel series. In the catalog at www.familysearch.org, do a film/fiche search for the indicated film number and the entire series will be listed.
Microfilm copies at the New York State Archives in Albany have the same series number as the original records indicated in column 1. Some of their films are from the GSU, while others were created by the Archives and may contain material not on an FHL film. Microfilm numbers are shown in column 2 only if the Archives does not hold the original records.
by Harry Macy Jr., FASG, FGBS
Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Spring 1991
Vetted for accuracy June 2011
© 2011 The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society
All rights reserved.