After writing about Eli Plants’ Mercer County Probate Estate Case File, several people asked if this information is on-line. And if it is, how to find it.
So, this is a how-to blog post, explaining how to search and find the old Mercer County Probate Case Files on FamilySearch.org.
The Genealogy Society of Utah (LDS Church) filmed Mercer County’s old probate estate packets in 2003, the filming arranged by the Mercer County Chapter OGS. The probate packets filmed are for the years 1852-1900. Those digitized images can be found at least three places, on FamilySearch.org, on Ancestry.com, and on microfilm in the genealogy room at the Mercer County Public Library in Celina. I like to view the records at home online because it is so convenient.
Ancestry.com is a paid subscription, but the images are free to view on FamilySearch.org. So today I will focus on finding the records on FamilySearch.org. Even though FamilySearch.org is a free website, you need to register and create an account to view their records. There is no cost, just create an account by creating a username and password.
Both FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com are searchable by name, place, and date, but sometimes you cannot find what you are looking for when doing a name search. The spelling may be off or there may be other reasons. The following steps will help you find the probate images when a name search does not yield results, to find what you are looking for by browsing.
The best and easiest way to locate a probate estate file is to find the person’s name in the alphabetical name index, which will also give you the case file number.
There are two Mercer County Case File indexes, an alphabetical index and an index arranged by Case File number. I find the alphabetical list the best one to use. It is on the first roll of microfilm at the Mercer County Library and it can be found on FamilySearch.org. To my knowledge, Ancestry.com has the index by Case File number only, but maybe someone has found the alphabetical list on Ancestry.com.
Below are the steps to find Mercer’s alphabetical index and their Probate Case Files (1852-1900). First, finding the index:
Log into FamilySearch.org
Under “Search” select “Images”

FamilySearch.org (1)
On the Images page, click on “More Options.” On the right, scroll down and in the “Image Group Number” box, put 005885904. Click SEARCH.

FamilySearch.org (2)
On that next page click on 005885904 (Item 1 of 2), Mercer, Ohio. This is the first roll of Mercer County’s filmed Probate Case File images, which contains the alphabetical index.

FamilySearch.org (No.3)
There are nearly 139 images/pages of the alphabetical index. Having this index is important, unless you enjoy looking through thousands of probate images. Names are in alphabetical order and the probate packet number is given in the NUMBER column. Plus, there is a brief description of the file, e.g. guardianship, will, administration, etc, as well as some other information.

FamilySearch.org, Mercer County Probate Estate alphabetical name index. (4)
Once you find the case number you can locate the case file images.
On that same page, on the right side, under REFERENCES > Collections, under “Historical Record Collection,” click on “Ohio, Probate Records, 1789-1996.” This is the second option under References.

FamilySearch.org (5)
On the next page, “Ohio, Probate Records, 1789-1996,” click on “Browse all 6,997,827 Images.”

FamilySearch.org (6)
The next page will be a list of all Ohio counties. Click on “Mercer.”

FamilySearch.org (7)
The next page will have links to all of Mercer County’s probate images that are available to view. Select the Probate Case File that corresponds to the file number you are looking for. For example, to view estate file no. 1811, click on “Probate Case Files 1876 no. 1791-1822.’ Note that the year is included before the range of case numbers.

FamilySearch.org (8), Mercer County Probate Estate Files
Click on that and you will have access to those file images in that file group range, usually about 2000 images per roll.

FamilySearch.org (10)
You will have to do a little searching to locate your chosen probate file. Toggling back and forth between the “grid” thumbnail images and the larger, single image, will help you go through the images quicker.

FamilySearch.org (11) Eli D Plants Probate File no. 1811
Once you locate the file, can view all the papers in the chosen probate packet. Eli’s packet contains nearly 140 images.

Eli D. PLants, Dec 1876, Mercer County, Ohio, Probate Estate No. 1811
There is at least one other way to access the case files, but this way works the best for me.
A couple other things:
On the page with all the links to Mercer’s various probate records, you will see a link to an index. This is the case file number index, not the alphabetical name index.
Note that there are links to the probate records of all Ohio counties where you selected Mercer. You may have connections in some of those other Ohio counties and want to look further.
I have talked about probate records today, but other records have been digitized and are on FamilySearch.org as well, such as land deeds. It just takes a little searching to find them.
One final note, FamilySearch has recently added an experimental website, FamilySearch Labs, at https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/ . Your FamilySearch.org login will work for both websites. If you research on FamilySearch Labs, be sure to choose the “Full Text” option. Their Labs website is turning out to be a great way to research with some very good results.
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