REGION – The Windham County Genealogy Interest Group (WCGIG) will meet on Saturday, June 24, from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., over Zoom. Please register at www.bit.ly/WCGIGJUNE24.
This meeting will focus on two topics: “Genealogical Gems Found in Probate Records,” presented by Wayne Blanchard, and “Dipping Your Toe in Irish Genealogy Research,” presented by Jerry Carbone.
Many useful genealogical gems can be found in probate records. Probate is the legal process of settling the estate of a deceased person. The records may include wills, inventories of property, guardianships, and other documents related to the settlement of an estate. The names of the deceased person’s spouse, children, and other relatives may be included in the records, which can help verify relationships in the family tree. Inventories of property can provide insight into a person’s life based on the possessions and assets of an ancestor. Perhaps the possessions give a hint about a person’s occupation or social status. Witnesses to a will or other probate document may be related to the deceased, or provide other information about them. Many probate records are available online from FamilySearch or Ancestry, and the databases are the easiest places to start a search. However, not everything is digitized, and research may involve a trip to a state archive, county courthouse, or town clerk office.
Do you have Irish roots and don’t know where to begin research? “Dipping your Toe in Irish Research” will help get you started in the basic resources for finding your Irish ancestors across the pond. We will explore the online Irish web site at www.irishgenealogy.ie, which has many civil and church records; National Library of Ireland, which has Roman Catholic parish registers online up to approximately 1880; www.rootsireland.ie, with the most extensive Roman Catholic records available; and Griffith’s Valuation (1847-1864), which contains approximately one million individuals who occupied property in Ireland between 1848 and 1864. We will be just “dipping a toe,” but it will give you some fundamental tools to search Irish records. For more information, please contact windhamcountygig@gmail.com.