New York, Kings County Estate Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

Collection Time Period
This collection includes county probate records for the years 1866-1923.

Record History
Kings County was created in 1683 as one of the original counties. The county has kept probate records since the time it was created. The records were kept by the Surrogate Court. Probate records are generally recorded in the county where the person resided. Estates were probated for approximately 25 percent of the heads of households in the United States before 1900, whether or not the individual left a will. The percentage of heads of households listed in this collection of estate files will probably be higher than 25 percent because a much larger percentage of the New York population is represented in the estate files than in the will books. Wills are more likely to be found in rural communities than in larger cities and industrial areas.

Why This Record Was Created
Probate records are used to legally dispose of a person’s estate after his or her death. The probate process transfers the legal responsibility for payment of taxes, care and custody of dependent family members, liquidation of debts, and transfer of property title to heirs from the deceased to an executor or executrix if the deceased had made a will, to an administrator or administratrix if the deceased had not made a will, or to a guardian or conservator if the deceased had heirs under the age of twenty-one, or if heirs were incompetent due to disease or disability.

Record Reliability
The death date, residence, and other facts that were current at the time of the probate proceeding are quite reliable, though there is still a chance of misinformation. The records may omit the names of deceased family members and those who have previously received an inheritance, or the spouse mentioned may not be the parent of the children mentioned.

Record Description
Probate records were court documents and may have involved loose papers and/or bound volumes. These records were generally known as an estate file or probate packet. These files included all documents related to estate settlement, including settlement papers, inventories, receipts, and other records pertaining to the estates, including accounts, administrations, appraisals, minutes, bonds, petitions, guardianships, inventories and settlements. The wills for this collection are described separately.

Record Content
Probate records include petitions, inventories, accounts, decrees, oaths of executors, forms about guardians and other court documents. Genealogical facts in entries include:


 * Name of testator or deceased
 * Names of heirs such as spouse, children, and other relatives or friends
 * Names of witnesses
 * Residence of testator
 * Lists of belongings, property, and so forth
 * Document and recording dates. (Sometimes the date of death will be given. Recording dates are also used to approximate event dates, i.e., a letter of administration was usually written shortly after the time of death.)

How to Use the Record
Begin your search by finding your ancestors in the index. Name indexes make it possible to access a specific record quickly. Check the index for the surname and then the given name. Remember that these indexes may contain inaccuracies, such as altered spellings, misinterpretations, and optical character recognition errors if the information was scanned.

When searching the index it is helpful to know the following:


 * The place of residence.
 * The approximate death or probate date.
 * The name of the deceased.

Use the locator information found in the index (such as page, entry, or certificate number) to locate your ancestors in the records. Compare the information in the record to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct person. You may need to compare the information of more than one person to make this determination.

When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information given. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors. Add this new information to your records of each family. For example:


 * Use probate records to identify heirs and relatives.
 * You may be able to use the probate record to learn about adoptions or guardianship of any minor children and dependents.
 * Use the information in the probate record to substitute for civil birth and death records since the probates exist for an earlier time period.
 * You may be able to use the probate record to learn about land transactions.
 * Use the birth date or age along with the residence or place of birth of the deceased to locate census, church, and land records.
 * Use the occupations listed to find employment records or other types of records such as military records.
 * Compile the entries for every person who has the same surname as the deceased, this is especially helpful in rural areas or if the surname is unusual.
 * Continue to search the records to identify children, siblings, parents, and other relatives who may have died in the same county or nearby. This can help you identify other generations of your family or even the second marriage of a parent. Repeat this process for each new generation you identify.
 * When looking for a person who had a common name, look at all the entries for the name before deciding which is correct.

Keep in mind:


 * Wills are more likely to be found in rural communities than in larger cities and industrial areas.
 * The information in the records is usually reliable, but depends upon the reliability of the deceased or the testator.
 * Earlier records may not contain as much information as the records created after the late 1900.
 * There is also some variation in the information given from one record to another record.

If you are unable to find the ancestors you are looking for, try the following:


 * Check for variant spellings of the surnames.
 * Check for a different index. There are often indexes at the beginning of each volume.
 * Search the indexes and records of nearby counties.

Related Web Sites
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New York Surrogate's Courts

Related Wiki Articles:
New York Probate Records

How To Cite Your Sources
Instructions for citing this source can be found at: Cite Your Sources (Source Footnotes)

Sources of This Information
"New York, Kings County Estate Files, 1866-1923", database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org/); from Kings County Surrogate Court, Brooklyn, New York. Estate files. FHL digital images, Family History Library Salt Lake City, Utah.