How can the new probate/wills record collection help my research

One of my new favorite databases on Ancestry to research in is the US Wills and Probates. Ancestry is still updating this database, but the information that you can find here is pure gold. This record type has been highly underused because they have not been easily accessible, but with the help of Ancestry, and FamilySearch we are now going to be able to use the valuable information found in these records.

In my own family history research, we have been searching for the death date, of one William Lumpkin Figg. There have been some who believed he died in 1912, 1918, and 1936 all in Linn County, Iowa; which do you pick. For me I picked none of them because I could not prove any of them. I searched for death records in Linn County and time and again came up empty handed concerning William. In my genealogical database the death on William has been blank about five years, but I had not given up hope that I would one day find the date of his death.  

The day this database was rolled out, I decided that I was going to search to see if there were any Figg's with a will in this area. One very promising probate popped up for a William Figg in 1918. When I clicked into the document this is what was found... 

Here I learned that this WM Figg was a resident of Linn County, Iowa, but he died in Buchanan County, Iowa on 9 January 1918. When I saw the dates on this document, I could not immediately take this as my own person, but it made me realize that for the last five years I could have been searching for a death in the wrong county. In order to figure out if this was the correct William Figg, I kept reading the document to see what other information I could come up with. As I continued to analyze the document, his heirs were mentioned as such:

When I found out who the heirs were for this William Figg, a joyful cheer came out of my mouth, because this is my family. I not only know when and where William Figg died. I now have a new county to write to for a death certificate for William. I also know where each of his children were living at the time of his death. This can be very helpful when I start to search for more information about each of their families.

The valuable information that was found in this probate, made me excited for the continued search for other people who possibly have a will/probate. I absolutely love when I am looking at the record collections Ancestry has added or updated and seeing this database increase in size. If you have not started searching for the gold in this database, start today. Take one person who you think might have a will/probate and search for them. The information you can use in these documents is well worth the search.