District Court (Second District : Weber County)

Probate registers of action, 1894-1986.

View history of records' creator.

Schedule Description

Probate registers of action list each action taken in the cases presented to the probate division of the Second District Court in Weber County. In addition to handling the estates of deceased persons, the probate division also deals with adoptions, guardianships, and insanity and incompetency cases. The court is responsible for adjudicating and conveying ownership of town site lands (Utah Code, 57-7-19, 1953). Occasionally, the court handles name changes and inquests regarding the cause of a death. In each case the probate register indicates the name or names of the individuals involved, the kind of case, and the name of the petitioner's attorney, followed by a list of each action taken in the case and the date that action was taken.

Scope and Content

Records and documents pertaining to a particular civil, criminal or probate action are filed together by the court clerk and collectively these documents constitute the case file. As these records or actions are filed, the clerk enters them in the registers which comprise this series.

A probate register of actions may contain the following entries for each case: the name or names of the individuals involved; the type of case being heard; the name of the petitioner's attorney; a list of each action taken in the case and the date that action was taken.

Notes

Utah law, enacted in 1941, sealed all adoption records with the exception that they can be released upon a court order expressly permitting inspection (Laws of Utah, 1941, chapter 17, 14-1-15). This restriction has subsequently been amended (1999) to allow public access one hundred years after the date of final decree or access as provided for in a mutual consent registry (Utah Code 78-30-15, 18). The probate division's jurisdiction over adoptions preceded the enactment of these laws and therefore many adoption records were cited in record books kept by the court. Utah State Archives staff supervises access to this series in order to provide access to probate records, but not to adoption records.

This series was archivally processed by Jim Kichas in October 2008.