Early Connecticut Probate Records

Charles William Manwaring spent the last years of his life abstracting the early probate records of the Hartford, Connecticut, Probate District and publishing them in three volumes.

Connecticut today is comprised of many different probate districts. But originally Connecticut Colony (as distinct from New Haven Colony) probate records were all kept by the colony as a whole. Then in 1666, after the union of the two colonies, probate matters were conducted by four newly formed counties, Hartford, New London, New Haven, and Fairfield. In May 1719 the colony began splitting towns off of the Hartford district to form new districts, first Windham, then Woodbury, and so on. Thus Charles W. Manwaring’s abstracts of Hartford District probates, which began in 1635, at first included the whole colony, but by 1750, when his third volume concludes, the district was considerably smaller.

As explained in the preface, these abstracts do not include every detail. It is often worth checking the original documents. Thoroughly indexed and here every-word searchable, these abstracts are an invaluable source for early Connecticut research. At the beginning of the first volume is a “List of Probate Districts and Towns” giving the date of formation and origin of each district. The third volume includes thirteen pages of Errata. Manwaring hoped to continue to 1800, but Lucius Barnes Barbour took up where he left off. Barbour’s abstracts, now at the Connecticut Historical Society, are being serially transcribed and indexed in the Connecticut Nutmegger.

In this database, search results are presented as highlighted formatted text. Scans of the original pages may also be viewed, via the “Display Original Image” button at the bottom of each results page. PDF versions of the index of each of the three volumes may be downloaded from this page.

These three volumes are also available in our research library in Boston, call number: F93 .M29 1904, V.1, V.2, & V.3.

To locate additional genealogy and local history resources, search our library catalog.

Download the Index to Early Connecticut Probate Vol. 1 (2.3M pdf) 
Download the Index to Early Connecticut Probate Vol. 2 (2.5M pdf) 
Download the Index to Early Connecticut Probate Vol. 3 (2.9M pdf)