North Carolina Deaths and Illinois Probate Records Posted at FamilySearch.org

In the last week of February, FamilySearch posted a large index of North Carolina deaths. It covers the years 1931 through 1994. According to the website, the data comes from the North Carolina Dept. of Health, with the original documents housed at the North Carolina Department of Archives and History in Raleigh, North Carolina. Note that the data posted is only an index, extracted from 1279 reels of microfilm at the Family History Library, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

I did a search on the surname Daffern, and came up with 55 results, none of them specifically Daffern, with most being the variation of Daffron. Most of the family still spells it as Daffron, so I was pleased with what I got. Following is an example of what you can expect to see. I’m using the death record of William H Daffron. According to the Index, he was born in Chatham Co., NC in 1873, and died 24 Apr 1941 in Hadleys, Chatham, NC. He resided in Pittsboro, Chatham Co., NC. He was buried His father was William Daffern and mother Elder D. Copeland. He was married to Pearl Daffron.

Illinois Probate Records 1819-1970
Also posted within the last fews day, was the Illinois Probate Records 1819-1970 for 24 counties. There’s no index yet, but there are 301,249 images, made up of will books, administrations, journals, inventories, guardian’s records, and order books from various counties in Illinois. The amount of data, and the years covered vary dramatically from county-to-county, with some counties having lots of data available at the site, and others very little. The following Illinois counties are included. Click on the link to see what records are available for that county – then browse those of interest. Note that although the database isn’t indexed, most of the scanned books include an index, so you don’t have to wade through will after will or probate after probate.