Probate Records as a Source for Early American History

HE varieties of human experience are not infinite, and the understanding of man proceeds through the study of the one, the few, and the many. Historians traditionally have concentrated on the first by focusing on the thoughts and actions of prominent individuals moving within a specific social and cultural milieu about which the researcher possesses a more or less clear picture. That picture, alas, is often the result of a series of camera's-eye views as perceived by the very actors themselves, and these views, superimposed one on the other, furnish the setting as well as the plot for the historian's narrative. No. wonder, then, that the earnest scholar searches for sources independent of his principals,, free of their influence yet pertinent to their fate. One such source exists in glorious profusion for students of early American history: the records of county probate courts. Many of these are available on microfilm, a few are published, and vast quantities rest in readily accessible archives.' The present writer's work in the records of Maryland and Massachusetts suggests that appropriate use of these materials can provide quantitative outlines of colonial economic development, furnish profiles of the evolving social structure, and sketch the contours of cultural change in the enclaves of European settlement in the New World.