Probate packets and wills recorded in will books are held at the county courthouse, unless the records have been transferred to a state archive. Not all states call their probate courts the same thing. The jurisdiction that recorded your ancestor's will might be called the superior court, a circuit court, a district court, a chancery court, a register of wills or a surrogate's court. Check The Handybook for Genealogists (Everton Publishers) or Ancestry's Red Book (Ancestry) for county courthouse addresses and the name of the appropriate jurisdiction. Probate records are usually indexed; they'll be listed by the name of the testator or intestate person, not by the people named in the will.

Here are some quick tips for finding your ancestors' wills:

• Working from the date your ancestor died, check microfilmed indexes of wills through the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. You can access the library's catalog online. Look under the county and state your ancestor last resided or died in, then under "probate records." You'll get a list of the resources available on microfilm.
  
  Sometimes the library has the index to probate records, but the actual records haven't been filmed. Even so, searching the index yourself is always better than relying on a clerk who may not check for other relatives or under variant spellings. Remember, the indexes and the records will not be online; you'll need to order the microfilm through one of the 3,400 worldwide Family History Centers.

• Once you have the volume and page number from the index, order the relevant film(s). If the FHL doesn't have microfilm of the records, use the address given in the Handybook or Red Book to write the courthouse for the records.

• If the FHL doesn't have a microfilmed index for the time period your ancestor died, you can still write directly to the probate clerk and ask if your ancestor left a will. Give your ancestor's full name, date of death and any other identifying information. Don't forget to include a self-addressed, stamped envelope so the clerk can tell you if the record is there and what the fee will be to obtain a copy. Remember, too, to ask if the entire probate packet still exists and how much it would cost to copy it.

Another useful resource is an abstract of wills. Kind-hearted genealogists make will abstracts available to the rest of us by reading every single will in a will book, then publishing a summary of the important aspects of a document, leaving out all the legal mumbo-jumbo. You might find published abstracts for your ancestor's area in a genealogical library, or check with a specialty genealogy publisher such as Heritage Books.

Some abstracts and indexes are also popping up online; try a search engine such as Google to see what's available for your state. Abstracts are wonderful starting points, but you should always then seek the original will or the recorded copy of the original in the courthouse. As wonderful as abstracters are, after all, they're only human and do make mistakes.