It has been an amazing couple of days for research for our book. One of my goals was to find wills for the three principle men that were the original settlers. Each step I take for discovery seems to magically provide the information that we need. So two days ago I googled for possible access to wills. While ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org each provided some indexed information about the wills I was not locating the wills. Then yesterday I decided to check out AmericanAncestors.org. and made an amazing discovery. They had copies of wills and probate records for both of the original immigrants in Massachusetts, and also for every male descendant in the pedigree chart. The only two lacking information was the male immigrant for my line and the one who moved to Vermont. I contacted NEHGS/AmericanAncestors to see if they could help with that male immigrant as it was only showing envelopes and then repeats of the last envelope. They very promptly replied that they could not find the missing information, but they did provide a different copy of the will and inventory for this ancestor. The database at AmericanAncestors.org is "Middlesex County, MA: Probate File Papers, 1648-1871 and is a collaboration between the MA Supreme Judicial Court Archives, FamilySearch.org and AmericanAncestors.org. What was gained from this wonderful database for just one ancestral line includes 78 pages, 11 wills and probate information (one 14 pages and another 21 pages for a Rev. War Veteran), 15 pages of other information. When I wished for wills for these ancestors I never imagined finding all of this.
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