New Jersey Probate Records Online

Family Search has just offered New Jersey probate records- over 3 million images.  Dates range from the late 1600s through the 1900s.  I am going to be very busy!  The records on this site are free and are the digitized versions of the microfilm rolls that you can order through a FamilySearch Center.  Types of records include wills, accountings, and guardianships.  To use the probate records, you need to use the indexes on the film as created by the Surrogate's Court.  The site is actively indexing its holdings and you can volunteer to help index.

You may discover dates of death from these records along with heirs at law (if no will/will rejected) or the people/family to whome the testator devised the estate.  Guardianship proceedings are also informative because all minor children should be named.  The surviving parent did not automatically receive custody of the children, hence the guardianship records.

The records are organized by county.  Keep in mind two things when you search for probate records.  First, boundaries of counties changed over the years and new counties were carved from existing counties.  If you know the name of the town (which also may have changed) where your family lived, you should be able to identify which county to search within a range of years.

The map on the right represents the 21 modern counties of New Jersey.  [Credit Geology.com.]
The map on the right is from circa 1826.  [Rutgers Special Collection]

The second point to keep in mind when searching for probate records is that the will or estate did not necessarily have to be probated in the county where the deceased lived.  The proceedings may be in a neighboring county or in the county where the real property (land/houses) was located.  This could result in probate proceedings in more than one county or even state, so read the records carefully for references to other proceedings.

Page from the Surrogate's Docket Index of Essex County, New Jersey
You may have to play around with the numbers until you find the corresponding documents.



Docket #17226 turned out to be a guardianship proceeding for the minor children of Charlotte Uhl,
awarding her guardianship of her own children after her husband died.

Some Interesting Genetic Matches

Here are some of my more remarkable genetic matches over at 23andMe.

This genetic cousin matches me on three segments, but my mother on only one and my father on none.  I probably received the other two chromosomes from my mother.  The match on chromosome 9 is perhaps just under 5 cM (centimorgan- a unit of measurement) for my mother and therefore under the threshold to report.  The match on chromosome 4 is an area of my mother's genome that was not read!

This genetic cousin matches me on one segment of chromosome 3 that I received from my father.  This man also matches my mother and her uterine brother on segments that I did not inherit (instead inheriting that part of my maternal side of chromosome 6 from my maternal grandfather).  This cousin does not match my father's known third cousin, but he does match some of their common Irish matches- which leads me to a specific branch in my father's tree- perhaps where my parents will share ancestors!

This cousin is really interesting because he matches me on a 21 cM segment- larger than what I usually see- but matches neither parent!  The 5 or 6 cM matches can be missed, as the threshold is 5 cM, but a 21 cM segment really should appear in a parent's account.

These strange matches are likely more distant than third cousins.  Our mutual links in our respective family trees are many generations back where the possibilities double every generation, making this a very large puzzle to piece together.

Sorting The Parental Matches and WOW!!!

23andMe has been adding some new features, some of which are helpful to us genealogists, such as family tree capabilities.  A new feature was added today which will greatly help some of us:  sorting your matches into paternal and maternal.

Let me clarify first:  You have two sides to every chromosome.  Twenty two of your twenty three chromosomes have two sides consisting of the side from your mother and the side from your father.  Current science, or the science available to us genealogists, cannot tell you WHICH side- maternal or paternal- is reflected in any one of your results.  As such, autosomal DNA tests produce a pool of genetic matches from both of your parents and you need to sort through them by comparing family tree and triangulating DNA matches with other known close relatives.

The new paternal and maternal sorting feature at 23andMe only works if you have a parent in the database who is sharing genomes with you.  In my situation, I have both parents in the system, so this works very well for me.  This feature does not work at all for my parents because their parents are dead and not in the system.

I set up my family tree and linked my parents to me and voila!  Of my 1600+ matches, 600 are credited to my mother and 200 to my father.  There is no specification for the other 800.  Very correctly, the people who match both my mother and father are credited as such.

I eagerly looked to see if my mystery 5% match from one year ago was attributed to my mother or father, especially since this person is blocked in my parent's account because the relation is too close.  As I hoped (feared?), this anonymous close relative is my mother's cousin.

My mystery second cousin is as close as my mother's first cousin or uncle.
Who is he?

See the pink M by the predicted relation of 2nd cousin?  That means that this person related to me on my mother's side.  So who is he?

We can use the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to rule out some possibilities.  MtDNA is passed from mother to child; males do not pass mtDNA to their children.  My mtDNA group is H1, the same as my mother and her uterine brother, and the same as their mother, Jeannette ODonnell.  Jeannette's four siblings are also all H1, so this man is not a sibling of my grandmother because his mtDNA group is H3a.  It is possible that this person is a son of Jeannette's brothers, or an unknown half-sibling of Jeannette by her father.

Basically, the percentage of shared DNA drops in half for every generation removed or is cut in half when the relation is by one ancestor instead of two.  Full first cousins (two grandparents in common) match 12.5%, while half first cousins (one grandparent in common) match 6.25%.  This is to put in perspective how close a relation this 5% match is to me.  Double that for one generation up and you have an approximate 10% relation to my mother.