Names in Prince Edward County

If you have ancestors in Prince Edward County (or nearby in Hastings, Lennox and Addington), you will want to try this index, as it includes all the names of people mentioned in the wills and estate files of women in Prince Edward County from 1859 through 1900. These people include heirs, relatives (including late husbands and fathers), executors, witnesses, neighbours and bondsmen. As women tended to include far more people in their wills than men, the number of names is quite large. In all, the index includes over 2000 names.

I created this database as part of the research I did for my undergraduate thesis on women and property in nineteenth-century Ontario. For my purposes, it allowed me to describe the kinds of property that women owned, and how it was transmitted to the next generation. For your purposes, it may help you discover family connections you wouldn't otherwise discover, such as the married names of your ancestor's sisters and children.

If you find your ancestor named in this index, you can either retrieve the estate file yourself (using the file number provided) at the Archives of Ontario, or contact me and I will retrieve it for you, for a nominal fee of $25 for the first 10 pages. If the file is larger than 10 pages, I'll invoice you for the extra pages at 50 cents each.