Durham Region Surrogate Courts—Unlocked… Part 1

I’ve written this post (the first of two) to accompany a presentation to the Durham Region Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. I’m very pleased to say that the digitized records on FamilySearch for Ontario County, Durham County and Northumberland County were unlocked for viewing at home over this past Labour Day weekend.

For this presentation, I focused on the records for today’s Durham Region. Established in 1974, Durham Region includes most of the previous Ontario County and Durham County. Because Durham and Northumberland were combined as a “United County”, Northumberland surrogate court records come along as a bonus. If you’re researching in this area, be sure to spend some time absorbing the geography and jurisdictional changes. That knowledge will help with all your research.

We’re lucky in Ontario that complete estate files were retained so we can see how the process worked—with all the paperwork. An estate file contains the documents created for the court and by the court to administer an individual’s estate. The estate file exists whether there was a valid will or none. It tells a story if you let it.

Let’s look at an example:

Edward John Donovan died October 19, 1918, and is buried in the churchyard of St. Columbkille’s Parish in Uptergrove, in Rama Township, which was part of Ontario County. Edward was only 25, single, and working as a manager in the wood department of the Standard Chemical Company. (Lumber was needed to make charcoal to supply heat for the manufacturing processes.)

He died of pneumonia, possibly resulting from influenza. He had the odd distinction of two death certificates—one in Penetanguishene where he died, and another in Rama Township where he was buried.

It is a bit unusual to find his estate file in Ontario County rather than in Simcoe where he died, but certainly more convenient for his family.

Start by searching for Ontario County records in the FamilySearch Catalogue. Using the default “Place” search, enter “Ontario”. From the suggestions offered in the drop-down menu, pick “Canada, Ontario, Ontario”. Under Availability, select “Online”. And Search.

From the short list of categories, click “Probate records” to expand the items.

We’ll start with the index 1854–1970, which is part of the third item. Click to open the full catalogue entry.

The index spans 1854 to 1970 and will be chronological within each letter. Unfortunately the entries are not dated. But 1918 will be roughly halfway through the list. For this particular index, you’ll find a key to years at the start of the film.

We can now use the grant number 5940 to find the estate file for Edward J. Donovan. Go back to the FamilySearch catalogue to find the listing of Probate records 1901–1930. Look for 1918, and the span of file numbers that encompasses 5940.

Click here to continue to part two, where we’ll look at each document in the estate file and the story they tell.