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September 2, 2015

FREE 170 Million Wills & Probate Records on Ancestry!

FREE 170 Million Wills Now on Ancestry!
Wow! Ancestry.com just published over 100 million wills written in the United States in the last 300 years for genealogists to search. More than 170 million pages from the largest collection of wills and probate records in the United States is now available online exclusively on Ancestry. 

With searchable records included from all 50 states spread over 337 years (1668-2005), this unprecedented collection launches a new category of records for family history research never before available online at this scale the United States.   

Until now, these records have only been available offline. Ancestry spent more than two years bringing this collection online, working with hundreds of different archives from individual state and local courts across the country and making a $10M investment to license and digitize the records. The documents cover well over 100 million people, including the deceased as well as their family, friends and others involved in the probate process. Ancestry expects to continue to grow the collection, with additional records available over the next several years.

To celebrate the launch of the new U.S. Wills and Probates collection on Ancestry,, the collection along with all U.S. birth, marriage and death records, will be available to explore for FREE, September 2 (12pm MT) through September 7 (10pm MT). 


Here are the records available as of today:
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4 comments:

Dana Leeds said...

I read about it here first... thanks! How exciting!

11:49 AM
Anonymous said...

Hi Lorine,
Thanks for the heads up! Shared on the East European Genealogical Society's Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/East-European-Genealogical-Society/155052604506503?ref=hl)

Chris Bukoski

12:10 PM
Ancestor Archaeology said...

BUT you must use the NEW Ancestry to view! If you have chosen to stick with the old or "classic" version they are blocking you from seeing them .....

12:10 PM
Olive Tree Genealogy said...

Hi Anne

I've seen a few complaints about having to use the New Ancestry to view the records. Quite frankly I don't get the big deal. Any website has the right to make changes to the way their pages display or the way visitors can view the information.

Ancestry is gradually getting rid of the "old" website and it makes perfect sense to put new record acquisitions on the new version - it would take a great deal of resources to have it available on both.

My way of looking at it is, if I go to your house and you offer me soup and a fork but I would prefer a spoon, I'm still going to eat that soup!

12:54 PM

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