Probate records offer genealogists an excellent opportunity to uncover information about a particular individual and family. Using wills, inventories, and administrative account records, researchers can learn such things as:

• Who was mentioned in a will
• Relationships between individuals
• Ages or birth dates of individuals
• Names of spouses
• Details on real estate
• Details on personal estates (monetary and inventories)

This new CD features information originally published in four works: Maryland Calendar of Wills (Volumes 1-16) by Jane Baldwin Cotton and F. Edward Wright, Abstracts of the Administrative Accounts of the Prerogative Court of Maryland by Vernon L. Skinner, Abstracts of the Inventories and Accounts of the Prerogative Court of Maryland by Vernon L. Skinner, and Abstracts of the Balance Books of the Prerogative Court of Maryland by Debby Moxey. All four publications (in the form of fifty-four volumes) were originally published by Family Line Publications, and feature information on approximately 600,000 individuals. The time period covered ranges from 1674-1774 for the Prerogative Court abstracts, and 1635-1774 for the Calendar of Wills.

The CD's introduction has helpful information about wills and administrative accounts, and gives a brief background behind the original Family Line publications. As with all other Family Archive CDs, this one is indexed and searchable, although you are limited to searching by name, section, or page number.

The administrative accounts and Prerogative Court records offer a fascinating look into the financial aspect of an individual's estate. The preface to one of the volumes notes that:

"...the probate records of the Prerogative Court of Maryland contain several types of records: testamentary proceedings, wills, administration accounts, inventories, accounts, and distributions."

October 21, 1998

Related Family Archives • Colonial Families of Maryland, 1600s-1900s • Maryland Marriages and Genealogies, 1634-1820 • Mid-Atlantic Genealogies, 1340-1940 • Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin, Volumes 1-38 • Marriage Index: Maryland, 1655-1850 More Articles • Finding Ancestors in Court Records • Wills and Testaments • Local Records Helpful Web Sites • Beginner Guides • Maryland On the Message Boards • GenForum: Maryland

• Name of the deceased
• Liber and folio references
• County
• Amount cited in the account for inventories
• Amount cited in the account for total amount of payment
• Date of the approval by the executor
• Names of the sureties
• Names of additional debtors
• Names of legatees
• Names of persons paid to
• Names of persons to whom the remainder of the estate was distributed
• Names of the executors

The Inventory and Accounts probate records contain similar information as the Prerogative Court entries, with the addition of:

• Names of the appraisers
• Date of the inventory
• Names of the next of kin
• Names of servants

The Calendars of Wills make up the rest of the CD in the form of abstracts. The introduction to that section notes that:

"...all names of properties and their acreage and situation, as far as practicable, and as given in the wills, will be found in the Calendar, and can readily be followed by reference to the index. Whenever a will shows the means, by which a property came into the possession of a testator, whether by purchase, deed of gift, or descent, the facts as state there will be found given in the Calendar."

A key to reading the abstracts is given in the text, and using that information you can locate the original records yourself for further research and verification of the facts found on the CD (whenever possible, you should always consult the original document).

The following is an example of the sort of information you may find in the Calendar of Wills:

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