Ancestry.com new records

New records added to ancestry.com include many for New Zealand, a Florida Marriage collection, and Pennsylvania, Oyer and Terminer Court Papers. The latter is easy to search by name of the ancestor, and the scanned images are very readable due to excellent handwriting. I found an ancestor who had been subpoenaed to testify in a report of a break-in, and would love to search these records further. It is wonderful to see such records online. They will most certainly help verify family tree information and will add to the stories we have of our ancestors.

Free indexed letters testamentary in Jefferson County, NY

Amazingly free, transcribed for the Jefferson County, New York, USGenweb, are the letters testamentary for the early 1800s. It is an excellent companion to the book I mentioned in my last post, which has will abstracts for the same county from 1830-1850. Thanks to those who were willing to transcribe and post, I am sure there will be some breakthroughs in family trees. The Jefferson County Genweb site is one of the best I have seen. It is easily searchable, and continually adds new records.

Jefferson County, New York Will Absracts

Many will abstracts for counties in New York are available at NEHGS. One of the counties that is not included is Jefferson. I was pretty interested to find that a book of will abstracts for Jefferson County from 1830 to 1850 has been published by the Jefferson County New York Genealogical Society and is and is available for purchase from them. Will abstracts can be very brief and relatively uninformative, or they can be very informative, naming a mother, a grandchild, a nephew, land purchases, and so on. I've enjoyed perusing the will abstracts that I have read. They can be relied on as pretty factual. If someone names a daughter or stepson in a will, that person is very likely a daughter or stepson to the person who wrote the will. The abstracts often mention relatives in other States, and often include the town in which the relative dwells. These are major clues in genealogy research. The will abstracts are indexed by name, and the book includes maps of the county and a diagram showing how cities changed their names. If your interest is in Jefferson County, NY genealogy, this is a good book to see, and if you can find a similar book (online or hard copy) for any area, it will probably prove to be very useful. You may see names that you have not seen in census searches.

The website for the historical society mentioned above is Jefferson County New York Historical Society

Minnesota marriage records

 An excellent resource for marriages in Minnesota is the Minnesota Official Marriage System (link below). It is free to search. You can enter names of bride or groom or both. The search is quick and easy and should lead to helpful information for family trees with any branches in that State.
Minnesota Official Marriage System