67 Allegany County NY decedents

FamilySearch's uploading of more than 14 million New York probate images from 1629 to1971 is an immeasurable boon to genealogists with research targets in the Empire State. It can, however, be immeasurably frustrating to find any particular person in the browse-only collection! It's divided by counties, and within counties by type of record and within that by volume or box. The boxed loose papers, organized by decedent, are among the most valuable probate records, and they don't even have page numbers!

Since I had to root through one of these virtual boxes anyway, in order to find my wife's ancestor William Berry, I kept track of all the other decedents whose estate papers had lodged in Box #2 from rugged Allegany County. The list of 67, with initial image number for each, is now on my web site. They are in order of appearance; if you don't have time to read all the names, use control-F to search them. They appeared to me to all be in the 1830s-1860s time range, where such records are most valuable. There are way plenty more materials in this one collection that would benefit from any sort of finding aid.

Here's a May 1845 summons to the next of kin of the late Gideon Hayward. James Hayward was living in Vigo County, Indiana, and Jane Davis nearby in Clay County. These are not just "New York records."

Gideon Hayward estate, Estate Papers 1807-1930, Box 2, Allegany County, New York; image 755 of 770, “New York, Probate Records, 1629-1972,” FamilySearch (http://www.familysearch.org : accessed 10 April 2013), citing FHL microfilm 594,806.

Harold Henderson, "67 Allegany County NY decedents," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 12 April 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

A partial solution to a chronic problem

If you're in northern Indiana and need newspapers from southern Indiana, don't overlook the Mishawaka Heritage Center in downtown Mishawaka (South Bend's "twin city"). They have a surprisingly large collection of newspapers from other parts of the state. Just by way of example, here are their holdings of microfilmed newspapers for Clay County, Indiana:

Bowling Green
Clay County Review February 1877-December 1878 + scattered 1879-1883
Clay County Democrat 1859-1864 scattered
Clay County Advertiser September 1854-June 1855
Clay County Citizen August 1855-May 1856
Clay County Weekly Herald March 1874-February 1877

Brazil
Western Mirror 1877-1881

Clay City
Independent February 1881-December 1885

And of course don't forget that if you know the exact date when your ancestor did something bizarre enough to excite Victorian newspaper editors, you might find it anywhere: it may have been reprinted across the state or country as filler.

Clay County, Indiana, ancestors

Thanks again to Tamie Dehler of the Terre Haute newspaper for calling attention to the Clay County Indiana Genweb's online posting of the wonderfully named and wonderfully comprehensive 1896 Encyclopedic Directory of Clay County, Indiana. Talk about census substitutes that are better than the original!