Sunset at Gowanus Bay

Sunset at Gowanus Bay
Sunset at Gowanus Bay, Henry Gritten, 1851

Monday, August 14, 2017

The Monmouth County, New Jersey Estate and Proceedings Indexes

Locating wills, estate files, probate and guardianship records in Monmouth County, New Jersey is not easy. Only a genius could come up with the cumbersome, convoluted and time consuming method of indexing that is used for Monmouth County estate records. The procedure involves first finding the individual you are targeting in the Estate Index, which then tells you where to find that individual in the Proceedings Index. The individual's entry in the Proceedings Index, then tells you where to find specific documents in the various books and dockets (Wills, Inventories, Minutes, etc.). Of course the Estate Index is not arranged in strict alphabetical order, but instead by that old time system which uses "key letters." On a positive note, these indexes are now online at FamilySearch.org. In the past, using them required either ordering multiple films from the Family History Library, or making a visit in person to Monmouth County. After about a half hour of maneuvering around the online images I was able to locate the pages for those named BROWER, BREWER, BRUER, BRUERE.

And so, in order to save all those interested some time, here is a link to the very first page in the Proceedings Index for those individuals with the surname BROWER, BREWER, BRUER, BRUERE. The pages are in Volume 2 and run from page 65 (image 471) to page 77 (image 483). Each "block" contains the name of an individual and a list of documents regarding that individual and where those documents are located. Note that not all of the books or dockets containing the original documents have been placed online. As of this posting, those that are online for Monmouth County include Wills, Letters of Administrations, Minutes of the Orphans Court, and a few others.

BGB 563

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