Unlike with Census records, there has been no consistent digitization of wills, probates, land, and tax records. These records are typically held with local authorities who may or may not have prioritized providing researchers with digital access to records. When they are available, though, land, wills, and financial records can be incredibly rich in detail.
Court records can include wills, which include the names and addresses of family members for the person(s) to whom the will belongs, and details about their estate. Tax records will typically include information on taxable items owned, as well as their income and address. Insurance records, too, can indicate information about income and may be available from local archives and historical societies.
Tax Records
You can search some tax records online through Ancestry.com, which has digitized the U.S. Internal Revenue Assessment Lists, 1862-1866 (Record Group 58). Most records are just for 1862-1866, but records for a few states, namely Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming cover additional years, up to 1874 or beyond.
Wills & Probate Records
Although many estate records are available digitally via Ancestry.com, they can also be found in county or city records archives. To locate these records, try using the information you obtain from an individual's census record as a starting place to locate them in other records.
Land Records
In addition to some property records being available online via Ancestry.com, local historical societies and city archives hold deeds and records for specific properties. Using the address listed in the census can give you a starting point for researching the area they lived in and what their home may have looked like. Depending on the era, there may even be photographs. When researching house histories, search both by specific address and by street block. E.g. "101 N. Merion Ave" and "100 block of N. Merion Ave". Tell the archivist what you're looking for exactly in case they have further insight into search strategies.
Ancestry makes both digitized records and indexes available to search through under the category Tax, Criminal, Land & Wills. Indexes can point you to the archive that holds the full record. You can find a link to this selection of records by scrolling down to the Quick Links section on the Ancestry.com homepage.
Although this isn't a comprehensive search, as many records in this category are not digitized, Ancestry.com will provide a good introduction to what might be available. As with searching census records, enter as much information as possible to narrow your results. Keywords, the inclusion of birth or death dates, and geographic limiters are especially helpful in narrowing your results.
Ancestry's search function will take additional information you provide as a suggestion, but won't exclude results because of it.
