This is the second post in my series about records that are not online, and perhaps never will be.  In preparing to start compiling my portfolio for certification, I decided on the family I want to write about: my paternal grandmother Ruby Chase Reed, her father Henry Hickox Chase and his mother Mary Ann Hickox Chase.  Each of them have fascinating stories, and I'm fortunate to have lots of original records that I received from my grandfather's estate in 1974.  In looking over the records, I realized that I didn't have some basic information - such as wills or probate records.  So I wrote, and then called the Manistee County Probate Clerk to see about getting those. 
     I had known that Henry Hickox Chase died in the Traverse City State Hospital in 1940; what I didn't know was that the Manistee County Clerk had a treasure chest of papers, waiting to be discovered.  She described it on the phone as a packet of guardianship records, and just said that there were "lots" of papers.  It would have cost me $1 per page to have them photocopied, so I emailed my cousin (who lives in Benzonia County, the next county north to Manistee County), and asked if she could do me a huge favor and go the courthouse to take digital photos.  She and her husband drove down that very afternoon, and took 75 digital photos of the papers, some of which were too fragile to be photocopied.

     Courthouses all across the country are filled with papers like these!

     The recent explosion of records available online to trace your family history may lead to a false sense of security, that you've found everything there is to find on your family.  This is the first part in a series highlighting how many records there are that are not yet (and perhaps never will be) online.
     There may be census records, birth, marriage and death records galore, in many different online sources, but something you won't see much are digitized images of wills and probate records.  In one of the many boxes at the North Carolina State Archives is a file folder for one such will.  James Oliver, Revolutionary War veteran, wrote his will in 1829.  In it he named his beloved wife Susannah, along with his children:  John Oliver, Polly (who married William Goff), Susannah (who married James Lumbrick), Sally (who married William Shepherd), Samuel, Elizabeth, and Nancy (who married Thomas Barker).  In addition, one of the witnesses to the will was Peter Oliver. 
     You won't find this online!