Probate records.

In the probate records we looked up James Gillaspie. He wrote his will on the 18th of October 1861, as he was leaving for the Civil War. He survived the war, but died of Yellow fever in 1867. His will was probated on Dec. 31, 1867 (yeah, New Year's Eve. I guess they didn't take many days off back then). He left everything to his "beloved wife, Susan Gillaspie", and made her executor of the will, and everything. He also didn't just leave her ownership, he also gave her the power to sell anything she needed to. An interesting example was her permission to "sell any negro she can not control". That caused some confusion when I first read it, as I had first seen that the will was probated in in 1867. That was when we found that the will was written in 1861. It was quite interesting to look that up. You don't see stuff like that in wills anymore.