New York State Court of Probates Record of Wills and Probates

Item

Country: US
Name of institution (official language of the state): New York State Archives
Language of name of institution: eng
Contact information: postal address: New York State Education Department, Cultural Education Center, Albany, NY 12230
Contact information: phone number: 001 (518) 474-8955 (reference services)
Contact information: web address: http://www.archives.nysed.gov/
Contact information: email: archinfo@nysed.gov (general)
archref@nysed.gov (reference services)
Reference number: J0043
Type of reference number: Archival reference number
Title (official language of the state): New York State Court of Probates Record of Wills and Probates
Language of title: eng
Creator / accumulator: New York (State). Court of Probates
Date(s): 1665/1822
Language(s): dut; eng
Extent: 5.67 linear feet (40 volumes)
Type of material: Textual Material
Scope and content: This series consists of wills, grants of administration, and (prior to ca. 1710) inventories and accounts of decedent estates. These documents were recorded and maintained by New York Colony's Prerogative Court and then by the State Court of Probates. Volumes before 1700 also include records such as governor, council, criminal proceedings; marriage licenses; and coroner's inquests.
This series includes several wills of members of the Jewish community of New York in the 18th century. It is the case of the wills of Joseph Nunez (1704), Joseph Brown (1704) and Esther Brown (1708), Isaac Rodrigues Marques (1707), Joseph Bueno de Mesquita (1708), Isaac Pinheiro (1710), Abraham de Lucena (1725), Jacob Fonseca (1729), Rachel Luis (1737), Lewis Gomez (1740), Simja de Torres (1746), Mordecai Gomez (1750), David Gomez (1769), Isaac Gomez (1770), Benjamin Gomez (1772), and Sampson Simson (1774), Mattathias Gomez (1784), and Moses Gomez (1790). See transcriptions in Hershkowitz (1966).
The wills of these and other New York Jews can be searched and accessed at Ancestry.com:; Wills and Probate Records, 1658-1880 on Ancestry.com
Archival history: The pre-1787 records of the former Prerogative Court and the Court of Probates were divided in 1802: original wills and other filed papers relating to the "Southern District" (New York, Kings, Queens, Suffolk, Richmond, and Westchester Counties) and all record books were transferred from Albany to the New York County Surrogate's Court. The records sent to New York City included series J0038-92 and J0043-92. Other filed papers of the Court of Probates remained in Albany. After the court was abolished, the Albany records passed into the custody of the Secretary of State (1823-29), the Court of Chancery (1829-47), and the Court of Appeals (after 1847). These records were placed on deposit at the Historical Documents Collection, Queens College, CUNY., in 1973 and transferred to the State Archives in 1982 and 1985.; (source: "Probate Records" in New York State Archives website)
Administrative / Biographical history: Between 1665 and 1686, wills were usually proved (determined to be authentic), and administration was granted in a local court of sessions, in the mayor's court in New York City, or by the governor. After 1686, the royal governor possessed final jurisdiction in probate matters. The provincial secretary or his deputy served as the governor's delegate or "surrogate" and presided over the so-called Prerogative Court. After 1670, it was required to record wills and administration grants in the secretary's office.
The Prerogative Court continued to operate in British-occupied New York City, Long Island and Staten Island during the Revolutionary War. In 1778, the State Legislature established a Court of Probates, which assumed most of the colonial governor's powers in probate matters. A 1787 statute established a Surrogate's Court in each county. The Court of Probates' jurisdiction was limited to hearing appeals from the Surrogate's Courts, supervising estates of New York residents who died out of state and non-residents who died within the state, and issuing certain types of orders. The Court of Probates was abolished in 1823, and its remaining jurisdiction was given to the Surrogate's Court. Between 1823 and 1847, appeals from the Surrogate's Court went to the Court of Chancery. Since 1847 appeals from orders and decrees of the Surrogate's Court have gone to the Supreme Court.; (source: "Probate Records" in New York State Archives website)
Access points: locations: New York, New York (USA)
Access points: persons, families: Brown, Joseph; Brown, Esther (Esther Pardo); Bueno de Mesquita, Joseph; Fonseca, Jacob; Gomez, Benjamin; Gomez, David; Gomez, Isaac; Gomez, Lewis (Lewis Moses Gomez, Luis Moses Gomez); Gomez, Mattathias; Gomez, Mordechai; Gomez, Moses; Lucena, Abraham de; Luis, Rachel; Pinheiro, Isaac; Rodrigues Marques, Isaac; Simson, Sampson; Torres, Simja de; Tores Nunez, Joseph
Access points: subject terms: Sephardim in North America; Wills; 18th century
Access points: document types: Wills and probates
System of arrangement: Records are arranged chronologically.
Access, restrictions: Microfilm is available for use at the New York State Archives.
The entire series is digitized (from microfilm) as part of a larger Wills and Probate Records collection and is available to New York State residents for free on Ancestry.com New York.; Wills and Probate Records, 1658-1880 on Ancestry.com
Finding aids: Eardeley, William A. D. 1941. "Index to Wills of New York State from 1653 to 1815" (typescript, available at New York Genealogical and Biographical Society library), pp. 72-83.; Fernow, Berthold, ed. 1896. Calendar of Wills on File and Recorded in the Offices of the Clerk of the Court of Appeals, of the County Clerk at Albany and of the Secretary of State, 1626-1836. New York: [The Knickerbocker Press].; Sawyer, Ray C. 1931-32. "Index of New York State Wills, 1662-1850, on File at the Office of the Surrogate for New York County," 2 vols. (typescript)
Links to finding aids: New York State Archives website
Existence and location of copies: Samuel Oppenheim Papers
Author of the description: Carla Vieira, 2023
Published primary sources: Hershkowitz, Leo. 1966. “Wills of Early New York Jews (1704–1740).” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 55 (3): 319–63. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23875622.; Hershkowitz, Leo. 1966. “Wills of Early New York Jews (1743–1774).” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 56 (1): 62–122. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23875942.; Hershkowitz, Leo. 1966. “Wills of Early New York Jews (1784–1799).” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 56 (2): 163–207. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23873629.; Marcus, Jacob Rader. 1959. American Jewry: Documents: Eighteenth Century. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press.; Pelletreau, William Smith, ed. 1898-1909. Abstracts of Wills on File in the Surrogate’s Office, City of New York, 1665-1801. 17 vols. New York: New York Historical Society.

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