Foreword

In the foreword to the First Will Book of Blount County is found the following: The court orders that W D McGinley, C T Cates and M L McCarrell be appointed a committee to employ some competent person who shall furnish a suitable book and record the old wills in the County Clerks Office, writing out the same at the lowest price possible and report: We the committee appointed by the County Court of Blount County, to have the Wills and Testaments of deceased Testators whereof there is no record, the Records being destroyed and we have given notice in writing and at 12 oclock opened the sealed bids and there were 15 of them and James A Greer has proposed and bid (4) cents per one thousand words with Index as we advertised for, now therefore I, James A Greer agree to take the contract and to Record and transcribe all of the wills of which there is no record as contemplated and I agree to commence as soon as a book can be procured and to progress as fast as I can and to complete the work in four months from this date and we the committee by the authority in us vested, bind the County of Blount, in the State of Tennessee to pay the said contractor, James A Greer, the sum which may be found due to him for the said job of work, when the same is done and we further bind the said County to pay him for a book for the work provided he purchase such a book as we direct him and such a one as we will receive from him the book to be paid for by the County as soon as it is bought or as soon as payment can be ordered by the County Court, to which we set our hands and the said James A Greer, his seal, this 6th day, 1 oclock, 1869. Attest: R N Hood, B A Morton This book is an index of the Wills of Blount County from 1795 to 1950 which are found in the following volumes in Blount County records taken from the TSLA microfilm: W1 W2 W3 W4 W-5 Beginning to 1857 January 1896 December 1922 January 1923 March 1934 April 1934 January 1947 February 1947 December 1950 Estate Book D July 1857 October 1865 Estate Book E November 1865 April 1874 Estate Book F May 1874 May 1885 Estate Book E2 May 1885 December 1893 Estate Book F2 January 1894 December 1895

Note: In order not to confuse Lettering in the Estate Books, I assigned the No. 2, to the second E and F estate books in sequence. I do not know the reason for there being 2 Es and 2 Fs, unless a mistake was made originally in the lettering of the Books. This is not the only attempt that has been made to index these records. A microfilm index was done to cover the years 1795 to 1971, but it does not indicate year the will was written or probated. Will Parham also created an index to Blount County Wills from 1795 to c1883, but that listing only gives the year of writing and sometimes the year of probate. I did this index mainly due to the fact that I was unable to access the entire database at the Blount County Archives without giving a specific name for searching. About 200 of these wills will appear in the four volume set of Blount County Cemetery Records which is set to be released in 2011/2012.

Robert McGinnis