plymouth county probate

While browsing the Massachusetts databases on familysearch.org, I noticed they added a new database that might include some ancestors of mine.  "Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Probate Records, 1633-1967." I have never been able to access probate documents because I have not been able to find the time to dedicate to spending a day at the courthouse.  Needless to say, I was very excited when I found this database. 

There are actually two Plymouth County probate databases on familysearch, I really do not know what the differences are.  The other database is, "Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Probate Estate Files, 1686-1915."  I found that I had better luck with the first database I listed.

The first step was to find all the ancestors that may have died in Plymouth County between 1633 and 1967.  I did a search in my family tree software, Legacy, for anyone that died in the towns of Hingham, Abington, Norwell, and Scituate.  It would have been easier to search for deaths in Plymouth County if I had been consistent about putting the county name in the death place field; but I knew that was not the case.  I also had to be careful with dates for my Hingham ancestors, as Hingham was part of Suffolk County until 1793, then Norfolk County from 1793-1803, and finally part of Plymouth County from 1803 to the present.  The search produced the following surnames from my family tree: Cowen/Cowing, French, Stodder/Stoddard, Chubbuck, Garnet/Gardner, Tower, Whiton/Whiting, McConihe/MaCconey, Raymond, White, and Dunham/Donham.

The next step was to browse through the probate files, since this database is not indexed to be searched yet.  This really was not that difficult as the files are organized by date and then alphabetical.  There are a couple of steps to finding your ancestor's probate, depending on which time period you are looking at. 

There are two groups of dates, 1685-1881 and 1881-1939.  The first group of dates (1685-1881) are broken up into separate files to browse sorted alphabetically by surname.  The entry for each person includes the volume and page numbers for all the probate documents that were created for that person.  The following is an example from the 1685-1881 grouping for Nathaniel French. 

If you have an ancestor that died within the second group of dates (1881-1939), there is an extra step involved in finding their docket of probate documents.  These dates are broken up into two volumes, also organized alphabetically by surname.  Once you find your ancestor in this index, you are given a case number, including the volume and page for finding their docket (or list of probate files).  The entry for George C. Cowing is below, which shows the docket number 11352, and which volume and page you will find his docket in, vol. 10, p 184. 


Familysearch then has the dockets organized by year and volumes, usually only two volumes per browsable database.  You simply click on the volume you are looking for and browse to the correct page listed in the index.  Then you will find all the probate documents created for that person, similar to the first grouping of dates.  For George, I went to the grouping of dockets for vol. 8-10; and browsed to the correct entry for George C. Cowing, shown below.  The entry shows all the probate documents created for George, including volume and page numbers. 


Now you know which probate documents you are interested in obtaining.  Familysearch also has many of the actual probate records online.  Currently it looks as is they have the records up to 1908.  In the previous step, you obtained the information to find these records.  The next step is to locate the volume; which are mostly organized numerically within the Plymouth County Probate database page.  Once you find the volume, browse to your correct page.  You will have to do this for each document listed for your ancestor to see all the probate records. 

I am very excited to have access to this database, and have already searched for all my ancestors that may have created probate records in Plymouth County.