ABSTRACT
Probate records are official court documents associated with the legal settling of estates. The word “probate” derives from the Latin verb probare, “to try, test, approve, or prove,” and probate records may best be understood as the bureaucratic paperwork that accumulates during the process of “hearing and determining questions or issues arising in matters concerning the probate of wills or the administration of decedents’ estates.” The process of probate in antebellum Boston can be reconstructed in broad terms. Probate was a reasonably democratic official procedure, including decedents of all socioeconomic levels, testate and intestate. A decedent’s documents are gathered into one file or packet, with a docket number that was assigned chronologically by the court when the process of probate was initiated. Antebellum black Bostonians will come under scrutiny—via their probate records. The Afro-American community in antebellum Boston enjoyed a heritage of racial pride while suffering the hardships of racist discrimination.
