Since 1719, Connecticut has used district – rather than county – probate courts. The boundaries of the districts have changed periodically, but the records do not move with district changes. To identify the probate court that would have served your ancestor, you need to know in which district their town of residence was located at time.
Of course, there’s a caveat. You may not need to dig this deep in all instances. There’s a statewide collection of probate papers that has been made searchable by Ancestry as “Connecticut, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1609-1999.” It also includes some docket books, which will summarize cases. You may be able to locate some of your ancestor’s paperwork there.
If not, you’ll need to look both a) at the filmed collections of docket books (which can located in the FamilySearch catalog using the name of the town that seated the court at the time) and b) the records of the court itself. Several courts have yet to film some or all of their records.
How do you determine which town or court to check? The Connecticut State Library has an excellent finding aid at https://cslarchives.ctstatelibrary.org/repositories/2/classification_terms/7. Click on the town in which your ancestor resided. If that town never seated a probate court, you’ll pull up a history of the courts that served the area. If it did, click on the entry with “probate court records” and then scroll down to “Historical Note” to learn the jurisdictions of the various courts.
Connecticut Roots by Charter Oak Genealogy 