My plan today was to add an ‘individual history’ page for Thomas Collins (?-1722) because yesterday I added an image of his administration account to one of my pages and I figured why not start there? But instead this has turned into a little lesson about the pitfalls of relying on indexes. I’ll cut out all the steps that got me from Thomas Collins to the probate index entries for “Elisha Walton” — just roll with it. According to the index, there’s an inventory and an administration account for Elisha, but I was surprised to find that my Family Tree Maker file does not include any such person, even though I have plenty of Waltons. [None of them are those Waltons, to the best of my knowledge.]

I noodled around with this for a while, calling up and re-transcribing the inventory and account and looking at probate for other Waltons . . . and searching through my court and land databases for any hints . . . and circled around for quite a while before concluding (as I had already concluded once before, now that I understand my notes from about 2005) that the inventory and account are for ALICIA HOLLAND WALTON, the widow of John Walton (d. 1717). There I was, on the verge of tentatively adding a man named Elisha as a resident of Somerset County even though there was not a single trace of him in any other records, until I came across entries in the court records for John’s widow. Identified as “Alica Walton widdow” and “Alicia Walton,” she shows up in court in November 1717 to settle some of her husband’s debts — but she died not long after, and the account was eventually settled by her brother, Richard Holland.

[For what it’s worth, this woman is in the extensive and super-useful MilesFiles 23.0 as Elishee Holland, but that site does not have the marriage to John Walton.]

The probate trail now makes much more sense. Even better, John Walton is now firmly linked not only to the Holland family but also to Thomas Collins, who married Elizabeth, the eldest child of John & Alicia. Thomas & Elizabeth administered Alicia’s estate, so now you know how I fell down this rabbit hole in the first place.