Full-text search now online for filmed U.S.wills & deeds, free via FamilySearch.og

[smcarberry]

The era of AI (artificial intelligence) has arrived for family historians -- the FamilySearch.org website is making available a search engine having that capacity to return results corresponding to a search term inputted by anyone having a FamilySearch account (which has no cost). The search engine is being given access to everything in the FamilySearch archives. This exceeds the previously-available indexes and now involves every word of all texts printed or handwritten. Search results are returned in a matter of seconds, to the user’s computer. Documents are downloadable for additional later review or printing.

Having successfully used this new facility this past week for documents matching my search term “County Clare,” I show below how to do it yourself. There are these cautions:

1. The search term you use is matched exactly by the search engine; there is no preference you can set for a “fuzzy” search. AI will provide what the algorithm “sees” as Clare, not “Claire.” Words resembling Clare could also be returned due to bad handwriting as well as light or distorted typing, My search for “County Clare” brought back images for documents actually involving only Clear Creek, Colorado or Clark County, Washington state. “Santa Clara” in California was also a false search result.

2. Don’t use as a search term either “Clare County” or “County of Clare” because most of the search results will then refer to documents for a Michigan property or a Michigan family. Michigan has a county named Clare. The most useful search term for the Irish county is “County Clare” for which some search results nonetheless will contain irrelevant documents involving the Michigan county.

3. If you have a specific named Irish locality, try a search using the most common spelling of that locality, since some Irish immigrants did in fact refer to their former Irish home by its townland or parish name. Returns based on those terms will return far fewer results than a search on “County Clare” (which for me had 4900 documents to review this week).

4. Documents in the FamilySearch archive currently available for this AI-based search are limited at this time to contents of various states’ archives at the county level, primarily property deeds and wills, primarily for states along the central section of the East Coast. That inventory capacity will expand sometime in the future. However, even now there are incredibly rare Irish documents to be retrieved from some deed or will files, submitted by newly-resident immigrants or even composed and signed in Ireland by Irish residents who received (or had a claim) to U.S. property due to death of a U.S-based relative. The documents include official copies of wills filed at the Registry of Deeds, for which the originals as a whole group were lost in 1922 due to fire at that office. To find such a document now in a U.S. archive is to regain knowledge of the exact wording of the original, from your home computer while you are seated in an easy chair and eating a snack. Life is good, don’t diss AI.

Instructions to access the search engine – follow exactly in this order:

1. Have on hand your FamilySearch.org log-in credentials (username & password) or, if not an account holder, acquire an account.

2. Go to the FamilySearch “Labs” entry point, by doing this:
(a) use this link https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/
(b) click on the green-colored “Sign In” designated “button” at the screen’s lower edge, mid/center
(c) on the resulting “Labs” screen, choose the left-side “ Expand Your Search With Full Text” and click on the link “Go To Experiment”

3. In the upper-right search box, type in a key word (for a phrase, use quotation marks to encapsulate the chosen words, such as “County Clare”). I suggest using as few words as possible for your search and don’t try basing a single search on two different key terms or phrases, because the result will have far more false returns, not less as you hope.

4. Each document in your search results consists of an actual document page image (in either typeface or handwriting, whichever the actual document had), plus, on your screen’s right side, FamilySearch’s additional typeface transcription that is totally machine-originated, not reviewed by a human for adequacy. I suggest first accepting or rejecting a document for further review, based on what you see in the right-side typeface. If you need to see more of the document to make your decision to read it in the provided original, you can reach the prior or subsequent pages of the same document by either changing the image number in the upper left space OR by clicking on the preceding or following image in the filmstrip along the bottom side of the screen. Filming was done at some prior date in time (sometimes dozens of years ago, potentially before advanced techniques in filming).

5. You can download to your computer any of the images you need.

Here are examples of what I found this past week, using only the search term “County Clare”:

Will of Mary Kate McNamara, signed 20 March 1944, location Santa Barbara, California:
Named siblings: Lizzie & Norah McNamara
Miles John McNamera, receiving her real property at West Pedregosa St.,
Santa Barbara CA
Bequests made to: Eileen Foley, Sydney, Australia
John Dennis Foley’s (unnamed) daughter, Sydney, Australia
Agnes Melvihill [sic]
Mary McNamara, Coolnahilla [Clare]
Daniel McNamara, Coolnahilla
Mrs. Patt McInerney, Rosslara [Clare]
Mary Molony, Kilclarin, Feakle

Will of Mary Gleason, Brooklyn NY, signed 1 Dec 1924 at Baltimore MD
Brother John J. Gleason, named as co-executor
Mother: Marie Gleason then residing Killuran, Broadford [Clare]
Other siblings: Ellen Gleason then residing Killuran
Michael then residing Killuran
Katie Shanaham
Deceased sister Margaret G. Kelly [all 6 children named]

Estate of Michael Considine of Renovo (Clinton Co.), Pennsylvania, will signed 3 Jan 1889
Affidavit filed by brother Daniel Considine residing Southport NY
Mother Mary then residing Liscannor [Clare], with decedent’s
other siblings Patrick, James, John, and sister Ann Vaughan
Siblings Ellen & Thomas – location unknown

Will of William James, admitted to probate 6 March 1895 at Register of Wills, Philadelphia PA
includes a document from Ireland’s High Court of Justice (Dublin), Probate & Matrimonial Division, filed by or obtained from Solicitor [attorney} William Lane Joynt; the document is labeled “Sealed Copy of the Will of William Lane Joynt, deceased” and bears a seal of Alfred Lane Joynt, Solicitor, Merrion Square, East, Dublin, with this attestation of the President of the Probate & Matrimonial Division: “the foregoing Will appears to have been duly proved and the Probate in force.[signature: Robert R. Warren]. Document pages have physical rips, on which clear tape has been applied (when, where, & by whom -- not stated), not impacting legibility.

In FamilySearch.org category “San Francisco Wills 1919”:
Image 769 is the start of a document bearing a typed heading “In the High Court of Justice in Ireland, King’s Bench Division (Probate), which is a copy [labeled as such] of the Will of Andrew McNamara of Lahardine, County Clare, gentleman” dated 12 Aug 1918. Further statements in this file: “who died the 21st of May, 1918” with executors named as Patrick Collins of O’Callaghan’s Mills, ex National Teacher, and Patrick Brennan of Tulla, shopkeeper. Directs that money on hand be used to install a monument for decedent at Killuran Church. Only one bequest is made, to his brother Timothy McNamara: money at a Tulla Bank and in the Hibernia Savings & Loan, San Francisco CA, plus ownership of bog land at Derrymore.

Will of Timothy Rogers “late of Crossderry, Caher, Feakle” dated 17 June 1918 [labeled a copy]
filed in Surrogate’s Court, Chenango Co., Norwich NY, admitted to probate 25 Oct 1917
sole bequest, of real property in Oxford NY, is made to Patrick Hely of Derrynagitta, Parish of Feakle

In FamilySearch.org category “Allegany Guardianship Records 1916” a file for
Margaret Slater of Birdsall NY, stated death date 3 June 1915
Decedent described as having no real estate, husband or descendants [spelled there as “decedents”]

File document (by Dennis Manning) names decedent’s 19 nieces & nephews by their full names, most described as being in Cahermaeran, Kilnaboy, Clare, plus one in Liverpool, England; Manning granted permission to provide notice by publicatio in the newspaper Angelica Advocate.

See also FamilySearch.org category “Allegany Probate Records” Image 572, Estate of Bessie Keane “late of Birdsall, New York” a different probate 21 April 1916 also handled by Dennis Manning, in which the sole legatee was John Kean of Cahermaeron, Kilnaboy.

In FamilySearch.org category “Montrose [PA] Probate Administrator Records”:
Document signed 18 Jan 1890 for estate of John Gorman, Borough of Friendsville, Susquhanna Co. PA
refers to decedent’s sister Mrs. James (Bridget) Malony, to Gorman’s cousins in Connecticut, and to
cousin Mary Ryan, Big Flats, Chemung Co. NY.

[Further returns involving Chemung Co. residents not searched due to large number of search references involving Chemung Co. and Co. Clare]

In FamilySearch.org category “Records of Wills: Mahoning” (Ohio)
File of Anna O’Brien of Youngstown OH; bequests to her sisters Kate Sheehan and Elizabeth Ganorean; bequest to her brother Thomas O’Brien of Clare “if he can be found” and to decedent’s sister-in-law Maria O’Brien, widow of her brother Michael, Corry PA.

“San Francisco Wills” California
Will of Edmond McGrath “late of Caherfinick, Doonbeg” with date of 13 March 1914
Bequest of decedent’s land, possessions, and cattle made to his son Michael, plus any money to which decedent is entitled due to the death of his son (unnamed) in America.

“Alameda Wills 1917” (a California county)
Will of Thomas Marnon [sic] signed 31 July 1917 while residing Oakland CA – bequests made to:
Brother Dennis Marnon of Williamsport PA, & also to him a sum for care of their sister Mary Marnon
Half-brother Patrick McGrath of Crambourne “via Melbourne” Victoria, Australia
Half-brother John McGrath of Sassefrass Gully “via Melbourne” Victoria, Australia
Half-brother Michael McGrath of Tulla Post Office, County Clare, Ireland
Monetary sum for brother Frank Marnon if claimed within 5 years
File note: Thomas Marnon died “on or about” 22 Aug 1917 in Alameda Co.

“Somerset Unprobated Wills” State of Maryland
File for Will of Thomas Sheehan dated 10 Jan 1810 [eighteen-hundred-ten]
Bequest made to his son Michael Shehan residing in Parish of Killdysart, County Clare”
(Killadysart was read by AI algorithm without the “s” following the “y” due to the handwriting)

Will Books: Orleans (State of Louisiana)
Will of Michael Fitzpatrick, filed 23 September 1852
Michael stated to be “about” 39 years old, never married, the son of John & Mary Fitzpatrick of Cronogort in County Clare, Ireland.
Bequests made to decedent’s brother Peter Fitzpatrick (decedent’s Pascagoula real property)
and to friend Mrs. Mathew Hehir of Cregg, County Clare [usual spelling now is Cragg]

[Kurt in S.A.]

Interesting! I did as you outlined, using County Clare for search. I got 68 million matches spread out on 245 pages. How did you go from there down to just the ones you posted about?

Kurt

[smcarberry]

Kurt, that is a huge number of results. My 4900 were all I got by inputting only "County Clare" as a search term. So, all I can advise is to be sure you have quotations around your search term.

If you have a specific Clare locality in mind, try using just the locality name (one word) as the search term, especially if the name is unique and doesn't contain a common word like Cross or Bridge. Or, for practice, input a locale truly unique to Clare, such as Kilfarboy.

Any reader more adept with search terms in this kind of application, please chime in with suggestions.

Sharon C.

[Kurt in S.A.]

Thanks, Sharon. I wasn't using the quotes, so tried it again. This time I get 9400+ results. Still a few. The name I'm researching is Brown/Browne so not that unique! As for town name, as I've seen discussed in various threads, spelling of town names can be all over the map. The only name I've been keeping track of is Cappanageeragh...could be variations on that I suppose!

Kurt