Randy Seaver suggested in one of his Follow-up Friday posts that bloggers who use the “browse only” databases on FamilySearch.org should “expose these records to the masses, and te[a]ch them how to use them.” So, I thought I’d share these bookmarks to help other York County, Pennsylvania researchers quickly start browsing the index. Then—since it’s a snowy afternoon and there’s nothing else to do—I thought I’d complete the list of links so that it includes each starting letter.

There are 128 film frames in this index. Here are links to the first frame for each surname starting letter:

• A surnames
• B surnames
• C surnames
• D surnames
• E surnames
• F surnames
• G surnames
• H surnames
• I/J surnames
• K surnames
• L surnames
• M surnames
• N surnames
• O surnames
• P surnames
• Q surnames [?]
• R surnames
• S surnames
• T surnames
• U/V surnames
• W surnames
• X surnames
• Y surnames
• Z surnames

What are Orphans Court Records?

Why should you care about the Orphans Court records?

Despite the name, these records don’t pertain only to orphans. The Orphans Court dealt with probate issues for those who had died intestate (without a will) and with the appointment of guardians for estate matters for minors. In these records you will find:

• appointment of guardians,
• petitions to partition real estate,
• petition for valuation,
• real estate returns—the report from the partition inquest,
• valuation returns,
• order of real estate sale, and
• account administrations—although only the record of its being reported, not the full account details.

You may also find the details of who received the real estate owned by the intestate. This usually includes how much they were ordered to pay to the other heirs or legatees and the names of these heirs. All very useful information.

How to Use the Index

In order to use these records, click on a link above to go to the starting page for the first letter of the surname you want to research. Each individual volume—book A, book B, etc.—is indexed by name separately. The dates the volume covers are listed with each volume. Scroll through the pages to look for a volume that covers your target time frame, then look for your surname. Don’t forget to look at volumes for the years after your target. Estates can take years to settle.

Once you’ve found the volume you want to view, click on the county name—”York”—to view the list of books available. Volumes A through 2X are available for York County, Pennsylvania. Click on the appropriate link to pull up that set of volumes. (Sometimes it’s easier to open a second tab so you can keep the index pages available to view.)

You’ll probably need to jump through the images a bit to find the correct volume and page. Just remember, in these volumes one image covers two pages. To skip 100 pages ahead, you’ll only need to move 50 images forward.

Take some time to explore a bit. You’ll get the hang of it! And if you have questions, just let me know. I’d be glad to help.

But do you know how old they had to be?

Today, we need to be eighteen to vote or join the military, twenty-one (in most states) to drink alcohol legally, and sixteen in order to obtain a driver’s license. In colonial times, there were also age-based restrictions and they often varied from state to state.

If you’re researching in colonial Pennsylvania like me, you’re pretty lucky; it’s very clear cut. A person obtained legal age at 21. Before that they were required to have a guardian for their estate and that guardian was responsible for all legal actions on their behalf. Before the age of 14, the Orphans Court chose and appointed a guardian for a child. After the age of 14, a child could request a specific person to be appointed as their guardian by the court.

But what if you don’t know how old they were?

Knowing the age-based legal restrictions can help you to estimate a time frame for person’s birth. A child who requested a guardian would have to be between the ages of 14 and 21, giving you a seven year date range for their birth. A man who appears in a Pennsylvania tax list would have to be 21 years-old, giving you a year that he would’ve been born in or before.

For more information on this subject you can read “Legal Age in the Colonies” by Robert Baird or the series “How Old Did Folks Have to Be?” on the Legal Genealogist.

Probate records can provide quite a bit of family information on your ancestor. A will may tell you how the decedent wanted his property divided and who was to get which pieces. You can get the name of a spouse, children, and associates—as the executor and witnesses were usually people the individual knew and trusted. A will may also point you to other documents. For instance, if the individual ordered that their real estate be sold, you might be able to locate deeds for the sale.

Intestate records may provide the names of the individual’s spouse and children, especially if they were minors and required guardians for their estate or if the decedent’s property needed to be partitioned. In the latter case, you should be able to find deed records for the transfer of ownership to the heir who accepted the property. Later deed transactions may also help you prove family relationships between individuals where there may not be other evidence.

Using this collection is not difficult. Navigating your way through it reminds me a lot of the “old days” of sitting down at a microfilm reader. There are no quick links directly to the information for which you’re looking. So, you’ll need to bounce around until you get to the right page.

Let’s take a look at the Lancaster County probate records.

The available records for Lancaster County include indexes for Letters of Administrations 1730-1830, Orphans’ Court records 1742-1755, and Wills 1729-1947, and Will Books 1730-1908, volumes 1A through 2R. To find a will, you need to start with Will indexes.

Let’s try to find a will for Henry Huber of Martic Township. I  start with “Will Index 1729-1949 A-K.” Clicking on the link pulls up the first frame.

Next I’ll need to try to locate the page(s) that include the Huber surname for first names beginning with the letter “H.” You could scroll page by page, but I usually estimate a starting point and go back/forth from there until I locate the page. I guestimated about image 200 and came up short with the Daub surname and jumped forward until I landed in close proximity to my target, then scrolled image-by-image until I hit the right page. All in all, I’d say it only took a few minutes to find the entry for Henry Huber.

As you can see from the image (click to enlarge), Henry Huber is the first entry. His will was dated 1757 and is located in Will Book B1, page 202. Since the book is online, I can go to find a copy of the will.

Click on the word “Lancaster” in the breadcrumb trail above the image to open the list of links to available books again.

I clicked on “Wills 1730-1773 vol A-B.” Book B is the second book in this series, so I need to jump forward until I’ve reached it. If there are two books, I go forward about half the number of images and adjust from there. Each image for a book contains a two-page spread, so jumping forward 10 images will jump you ahead 20 pages.

A little back and forth and ta-da! Henry Huber’s 1757 last will and testament.

The various counties in Pennsylvania have different records available to view. For instance, York and Adams counties not only have wills, but also the orphans court records. That means that you can find proceedings for intestates and guardianship petitions. The format of the indexes may also vary from county to county. Instead of a strictly alphabetical list, some of them use the Russell key indexing system. It uses key letters within the surname to index the names in groups which are then separated out by first name.

If you have Pennsylvania ancestors, give the collection a try and let me know what you find! If you have questions, you can let me know those, too.

The site is in beta, so obviously it’s incomplete, but I was able to quickly and easily find sources for my ancestral town simply by typing “Rußheim” in the search engine. Among the search results were church books from the early 1800s— the “Rußheim, evangelische Gemeinde: Standesbuch.” I was able—I think—to locate a record for my 4th cousin 5 times removed, Johan Friedrich Hacker. I don’t speak German and I have difficulty in reading the German script, but I was able to recognize key words, including “mother,” “father,” and the names associated with each.

I get a thrill in viewing original records, even if it’s only by remote through an online digital version. This record was written down 181 years ago with pen and ink and paper in a bound book and now I can view it from across an ocean without leaving my house! Rather extraordinary.

Take a look through the site and let me know what you find!

For instance, from the marriage announcement for T.P. Drake and Alice Hocker, we find they were married at her sister’s home on 1426 Hubbard Street, Jacksonville and that the decorations included palms and cut flowers, that the bride wore “a costume of white satin trimmed with pearls and point lace,” and that “her long bridal veil was caught up with a pearl and diamond ornament.”^[1] We also learn that they planned to live in Florida for most of the year, but spend their summers elsewhere.

Have you found any interesting details about the lives of your ancestors from newspapers?

Enter tax records. Everyone hates that tax man—our ancestors, too, I’m sure—but tax records can help to fill in the gaps between census enumerations.

In the Census

Take for instance, the example of my Hocker relatives in Cocalico Township. The census records for Cocalico Township for 1800 through 1820 include the following Hockers:

• 1800
  • Frederick Hocker
• 1810
  • Frederick Hocker
  • John Hauker
  • George Hocker
• 1820
  • John Hocker
  • Jacob Houker

In Tax Records

The tax lists from Cocalico Township fill in the years between the census and provide glimpses of additional Hocker men. The Hockers listed in the township include:

Do these records refer to the same man? Probably not. First, there’s the separation of 10 years between the appearances. Secondly, the first Jacob was a married land owner—the records indicate he owned 100 ares, while the second was an unmarried man.

Conclusions

Correlating these records with others—church records (birth, baptism, confirmation, communion, marriage and death), estate files and wills, deeds, etc.—will flesh out the story even more. Putting it all together, I can conclude that Frederick and George were probably brothers—sons of Johan Adam Hacker. Their youngest brother Jacob purchased about 100 acres in 1803, then sold it to Frederick in the spring of 1806. Jacob and his wife Elizabeth likely moved across the river to York County around this time.

Frederick’s eldest son John came of age about 1802 and likely married by 1804. He appears in tax records starting in 1805. His next oldest son George appears in the 1810 tax record, but I don’t know if  it’s him or his uncle in the 1810 census. Without the tax record, I wouldn’t have even known there were two men named George in Cocalico Township in 1810—and may have attributed children to one or the other that didn’t belong to them.

Frederick Hacker died in 1812. John refused his father’s property. His younger brother George accepted it, but didn’t—or was unable to—keep it. George sold the property in 1813. Meanwhile, their younger brother Jacob, who’d come of age in 1812, was listed in the 1813 tax list as a freeman.

Uncle George, who disappears from the tax record about this time, too, starts appearing in Church records in Schaefferstown (just to the north) by 1815 and is included in the 1820 census for Lebanon Township.

Tax records can help to fill in the holes and provide clues on where and when to look for other documents. A change from being listed as freeman to not might tell you when a man got married. An appearance in the tax list might also tell you when and where to look for deed records. Tax records won’t tell you everything you want to know, but they can help you build the story and verify that you’ve got the right person in other records.

Have you found your ancestors in tax records? What did you learn about them?

* Inmate and freeman are terms used in Pennsylvania tax records. An inmate is not a prisoner or someone locked up. In this case, it is a married man with who owns no land. A freeman is a single man. You’ll sometimes see single man in the records, too. All men in the tax records are at least 21 years of age.