Daily AncestorRead one will from start to finish
Find a will for an ancestor and read the whole thing, listing every person named and how the will describes them.
Wills name relationships more plainly than almost any other early record, but words like cousin, now wife and his heirs did not always mean what they mean today.
Your steps this week
- Find a will through a county probate office, state archive or free digitized will books.
- Transcribe the clauses that name people, keeping the clerk's spelling.
- Make a list of each person with the exact words used for them (my son, my now wife, my cousin).
- Look up any legal words such as executor or codicil, and check old relationship words before you add them to your tree.
- Note the dates the will was written and proved, since the gap tells you roughly when the person died.