Monday Is for Mothers: Timney P. Watts (1805 - 1863) - Probate Records, Part 1

I love probate records--you can learn a lot from them.* And those of my 3rd great grandmother Timney P. Watts Warren Phillips** (who died without leaving a will) are filled with many details about her last years that we would not know about otherwise.

On September 21, 1863,*** her son Jeremiah D. "J.D." Phillips received Letters of Administration for Timney's estate and posted a bond for $10,000**** joined by two other men, James O.A. Adams and E.B. Zachry.*****

[Ancestry.com. Alabama, Wills and Probate Records, 1753-1999 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Alabama County, District and Probate Courts.]

[Ancestry.com. Alabama, Wills and Probate Records, 1753-1999 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Alabama County, District and Probate Courts.]

From examining the above inventory we can deduce that Timney's house was filled with furniture including a book case, a clock and a mirror.

[Ancestry.com. Alabama, Wills and Probate Records, 1753-1999 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Alabama County, District and Probate Courts.]

Nor is it likely she was forced to do much manual labor as she had four enslaved people living with her.

[Ancestry.com. Alabama, Wills and Probate Records, 1753-1999 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Alabama County, District and Probate Courts.]

Timney's  probate file contains 110 pages, covering a variety of subjects including a suit against J.D. filed by her other heirs, a lot of bills brought to court by various people (the ones her doctor submitted tell their own story) and the final settlement of her estate.

I'll be sharing some of the information I've learned about Timney through her probate records in subsequent posts.

*I've begun to share the story of my great uncle Jeremiah Warren (Timney's brother-in-law from her first marriage to Jesse Warren Jr.) as gleaned from his Georgia probate court documents in the 1830s.
**We still don't know what that "P" stands for.
***Earlier this year I posted about Timney's obituary in the Southern Christian Advocate. It's clear from this court document that she didn't die on this day as the obit stated
****Since Alabama had seceded from the United States in 1861 and was part of the Confederacy at the time, this sum would have been in Confederate dollars.
*****Adams doesn't seem to have a connection to J.D. but Zachry appears to be his father-in-law, Edwin Baker Zachry.

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