Index to Estate Packets 1838-2000 Whitley County, Indiana

This index was created with the help of Cindy Keirn from a copy of the original listing in the County Clerk's office. That index was a pseudo-alphabetical listing, meaning that all of the surnames starting with the same letter were listed together, as the estate packets were created, but they were not sorted in alphabetical order. Usually the names listed first were the earliest, but that was not always the case.

Estate Packets can be a "mixed blessing" as far as genealogical resources are concerned. Some packets could contain a complete listing of all heirs and the distributions they received, while others could simply contain copies of receipts and other miscellaneous slips of paper.

The File Manager can provide a count of the number of documents in the packet prior to your order request but can not determine for you whether it contains any genealogical information. When making an inquiry regarding these packets be sure to include the name of the person and packet number.

Please Note that this Estate Packet Index was not checked or verified against the existing packets. It is highly probable that some of the packets are missing, either lost or misplaced.

Included in this index are the Last Name, First Name ~ Packet Number ~ Comments ~ Year-Code.

The earliest packets were not assigned a number. Many of the numbers prior to 1900 were used multiple times, some of them as many as 4 or 5 times.

The Year-Code is an attempt to provide an indication of the time frame for the packet. Note that the year listed is most likely NOT the year of death.

In the mid-1960's, the Clerk's office started including the year in the index and later as part of the packet number, but prior to that time there was no reference to the year in their index. These dates are referenced with a PktNum or EstIndx suffix. Some packets during these years had no date included but because of the number sequence the date could be estimated, thus these are indicated with a suffix of Estimate.

While Kay Craig was the Archivist/File Manager she removed the packets from the old metal storage drawers and filed them sequentially, by packet number, in archival boxes. At the same time she started creating an index which included the date but it was extremely time-consuming and the project was abandoned. These dates are referenced with a kcIndx suffix.

A search was done of the Cemetery transcriptions and Nellie Raber's Digest of Obituaries to help in determining a year for those packets where there was no year. These have a suffix of Cemetery or RaberIndx.

An entry of before 1900 in the Year-Code column indicates there was no way of determining the date from available records with any degree of certainty. All of these are packets without numbers or very low numbers and it has been verified by checking a few packets that they are indeed all prior to 1900. Packet numbers that have been verified are indicated with a suffix of PktChkd.

Please Note that this Estate Packet Index was not checked or verified against the existing packets. It is highly probable that some of the packets are missing, either lost or misplaced.

Index to Estate Packets

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