Source:Barbour, Lucius Barnes. Hartford District Probate Records

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"Taking up where Charles W. Manwaring left off with his Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records (1904-06), Lucius Barnes Barbour abstracted Hartford District Probate records as transcribed into the record books. Certainly this was part of his work on Hartford families in the early 1900s, now published as Families of Early Hartford, Connecticut under the sponsorship of the Connecticut Society of Genealogists (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1982).

Barbour's ten manuscript volumes are at the Connecticut Historical Society. Apparently he did consult the files of original papers, as some of the penciled notations, particularly on the bottom left of many pages, would seem to refer to the various documents in the relevant files. This transcription of the volumes is made verbatim from Barbour's handwritten notes and has been carefully proofread. It has not been compared with the record books themselves. Occasionally Barbour's words are unclear. Punctuation has been altered or added very sparingly. It would be wise for any researcher to use this as a guide and consult both the record volumes and the probate files. These are available on microfilm at the Connecticut State Library and from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

This transcription begins in 1750 with volume 16. Barbour arranged the probates alphabetically. His notebooks contain a great many pencilled annotations from other sources. Only a very few of these are included here. When it says 'Court Record,' this refers to the separately paginated court minutes in the reverse of the volume, upside down on FHL microfilm #4554, following the beginning section which contains the wills and inventories."

-Helen Schatvet Ullmann - The Connecticut Nutmegger, 34:188, Sep 2001 [First installment of a continuing series].