Colonial Wills, 1733-1778.This series consists of wills probated in the Colony of Georgia. There are thirty-two wills from the Trustee period,
1733-1753. After Georgia became a royal colony in 1754, the governor acted as Ordinary or appointed an official to carry
out such duties. The Ordinary probated wills and administered estates by appointing executors, provided instructions to
administrators for the inventory and appraisal of an estate, and appointed guardians for minor children. These documents
are the copies submitted to the Ordinary for transcription into volumes as the official record copies. The series includes
wills in French and in German, some of which include English translations.
Each will includes the name of the testator, the date and residence of the testator when the will was written, bequests,
and any instructions regarding the estate of the
decedent. Most wills are accompanied by attestations of the will with the
date the will was proved and/or the date the will was recorded. Some wills include codicils, letters of administration,
warrants of appraisement, and estate inventories. These documents were not always written on separate sheets; attestations
were often recorded on the will itself.
Each of these documents has several dates. The date indexed here is the date that was inscribed on the outside when
documents were folded to a uniform size for filing. If the document has no inscription, the date listed is the date the
will was written.
These records are from Record Group 049-01-02, Colony of Georgia -- Wills.