Probate Records in Connecticut
Posted: April 17, 2000
In most states, probate records are kept by county-level
government. In Rhode Island, they are kept by town and city government. In
Connecticut, probate records are not kept by state, county, or local
government. What, then, could possibly be left? It's the "probate
district"--a concept unique to Connecticut. This column will discuss the
history of probate record keeping as it pertains to wills, estates, and
guardianships. Today probate courts cover many aspects of family law, but the
column will only deal with those related to the processing of estates.
At different times during the
colonial period, records were kept by different agencies. This early period can
be confusing for a genealogist. After all, why would you expect the estate of a
man dying in Connecticut in 1688 to be processed in Boston? It doesn't make
much sense on the surface. Luckily, there are ways to find the more obscure
items. The good news is that the system settled down by 1698. With the
establishment of probate districts that year, we enter an era of predictability
in record storage, always a plus for a genealogist.
Three Separate Colonies
(1635-1662)
Connecticut began in the 1630s as three different colonies called Connecticut,
New Haven, and Saybrook. Saybrook
joined Connecticut Colony in the 1640s. King Charles II mandated union with New
Haven in 1662. It took a few years, however, for New Haven to comply with this
mandate. During this early period in Connecticut history, each colony had its
own legislature, called the General Court. The upper house of this legislature
would sit as a court, called the Particular Court, for criminal and civil
proceedings. Probate records in the small colonies were processed in these
courts.
New Haven Colony probates were
filed with the colony's secretary and can be found in the colony records:
Connecticut Colony probates
were filed with the General Court records until 1649, and afterwards with the
Particular Court.
Although most probate records
at this period are found in these courts, there are some exceptions, most
related to coping with the distance of travel from all points of the colony to
Hartford. In what are today Fairfield and New London Counties, from 1649 to
1666, there were Special Particular Courts in addition to the Particular Court
sitting in Hartford. Estates filed in the special courts are available today
only in the originals and microfilm copies of the Fairfield and New London
Probate Districts. A few probate records from 1639-1649 are scattered in town
records, such as those of Guilford and Stamford.
County-Level Probate Courts
(1662-1698)
After a few years of foot-dragging, New Haven Colony joined Connecticut Colony
as required under the charter of 1662. It was also at this time that the first
four original counties were established in Connecticut; they were Fairfield,
New Haven, New London, and Hartford. In May 1666, probate courts were
established in those counties. Although these county-level probate courts
predate the probate district system, their records can now be found as the
earliest records of the first four probate districts.
Administration of Gov.
Edmond Andros (1687-1688)
From 1687 to 1688, during the reign of Gov. Edmond Andros
over New England, probate records were again filed with the Particular Court,
but for the period from 1686 to 1689, estates valued at more than �50 were
filed in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
Probate District Courts
(After 1698)
In 1698 probate districts were established. The first four were the original
four county probate courts. In 1719 the process of splitting districts began.
By 1900 there were over 100 probate districts, and today the number approaches
140. This continuous process of subdividing probate districts has a very real
impact on your ability to find records. You need a crib sheet that tells you
when each district was daughtered-off its parent
district. Then you need to sit down and determine in which district or parent
district the records for a person dying in a particular year would be located.
Fortunately, there are two widely available such crib sheets.
Connecticut probate records from
the probate district system are widely available in microfilm format. There are
three resources to consult when doing a thorough probate record search:
It is important to look in
both probate packages and in probate record books for each and every probate
you research. In fact, I have an example from Roxbury, Connecticut. My four greats grandfather, Philo Hodge, appears in the probate
package card index. He died in 1842, when Roxbury came under the jurisdiction
of the Woodbury Probate District. I was able to find Philo's will in his estate
probate package, but not in the probate record book. He left his meager
belongings to his wife Lucy. Lucy Hodge died in 1853, and her name does not
appear in the probate package card index. At the time of her death, Roxbury was
in the jurisdiction of the newly formed Roxbury Probate District. There, in the
probate record book, I found transcriptions of receipts for $25 from her estate
from each of her surviving nine children. They had fanned out across the U.S.,
from Connecticut to New York, Ohio, and Indiana. I would have missed some of
them without the probate record books to point the way. None of these receipts
evidently survived to be placed in a probate package, so Lucy's name did not
appear in the index.
Further Finding Aids
I have a personal favorite for my own pedigree problems in Fairfield County.
Spencer Mead created his own set of abstracts to records for a few towns there
in a county notoriously difficult for research. Leave it to my ancestors to
live in a place where town, church, and vital records are all too frequently
missing. These abstracts have been microfilmed and are available through Family
History Centers. For probate records, Mead's abstracts can be used as an
every-name index to probate record books. His three abstracts are:
The History and Genealogy Unit
of the Connecticut State Library has prepared an excellent introduction to
probate records, which is available on their website.
Copyright � 2000, New England Historic Genealogical Society