Whitehead Genealogy  
Wills
Information Sources

Like our Our Bible records, copies of wills come to us from a number of sources. Unlike Bibles, wills are legal documents that require registration to be enforceable, and most often require the help of an attorney to be properly worded.

  • Many genealogical groups have researched and catalogued wills as an obvious source of family information
  • In a few cases wills pass down in families and are forwarded on to us for research
  • Many wills are available in county courthouses since the process of probating a will is a legal requirement. Earlier executors and executrixes had to prove their performance under the will, and, therefore, additional family records are available
The Value of Will Information

When one thinks about valuable information on a person or family, wills must rank high on the list of valuable sources. Many things about the person and their family can be gleaned from a will, and we should not overlook the chance to learn facts such as:

  • Where the person lived
  • Who was their spouse
  • Did their spouse or any of their children predecease them
  • Did they disinherit anyone
  • What did they value
  • How wealthy were they
  • Were they religious, and/or did they give part of their estate to charity

Historically wills can also tell us useful information about a person and the times in which they lived. For example, in the south prior to the Civil War, slaves were viewed as valuable property and usually noted as such in a person's will. The number of slaves willed to heirs is a clear indication of wealth, and also an indication of the size of the land holdings the person possessed.
Surnames
Comer Family Wills
Cook Family Wills
Epps Family Wills
Glenn Family Wills
Harrison Family Wills
Howard Family Wills
Jefferson Family Wills
Lacey Family Wills
Lowe Family Wills
Whitehead Family Wills
Williams Family Wills
Wise Family Wills
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Information Organization
Our will information is somewhat easier to organize than artifacts such as Bibles. Each will is the record of a specific person's wishes for the settlement of their estate among their heirs.

  • All will records are stored in Adobe PDF format which allows us to include our own notes and images of pages when they are available.
  • The first page of the document contains our notes on the significance of the will, source information, relationships, and other information not actually found in the will itself.
  • The source information is followed by a transcript of the information contained in the will.
  • The transcript is followed by images of the pages from the will when they are available.

These records are organized according to surname and then by initials. Will files are named using the convention of "wil" followed by the surname of the will owner, followed by the owner's initials, and then lastly by a two digit tie breaker. So a will belonging to Robert C. Whitehead would be named wil_whitehead_rc_01 assuming it was the first one with that surname and initials.

We also discovered a number of wills where the papers are drawn for the person without use of their full name. Where we know the full name or full initials of that party we incorporate those into the naming convention.