Blair County Orphans' Court Records
The Blair County Orphans' Court function is served through the Clerk of Orphans' Court at the Blair County Courthouse, 423 Allegheny Street, Suite 144, Hollidaysburg, PA 16648. The office phone is 814-693-3080. Robin G. Patton is listed as Clerk of Orphans' Court, Crystal Gozaydin as second deputy, and Gabriel Fera PC as solicitor. Hours are Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, with the office closed daily from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm.
The clerk maintains dockets and files for sealed adoptions, appointments of guardians, incapacitated-person petitions, estate accountings, small estates, and marriage records. Birth and death records from 1893 through 1906 are also in this office. Later birth and death records belong with Pennsylvania Department of Health Vital Records. That split matters when a family record request looks like probate but is really a vital-record request.
Blair County Clerk of Orphans' Court
423 Allegheny Street, Suite 144
Hollidaysburg, PA 16648
814-693-3080
Monday-Friday, 8:00 am-4:00 pm; closed 12:00 pm-1:00 pm
Probate Terms in Blair County
Orphans' Court records use terms that do not always appear in criminal or civil dockets. These definitions help separate estate filings from guardianship and adoption matters before contacting the clerk.
- Testator
- A person who made a will before death.
- Executor
- The person named in a will to carry out estate duties.
- Intestate
- Dying without a valid will, which can change who may administer the estate.
- Guardianship
- A court appointment for a minor or incapacitated person, or for that person's estate.
- Incapacitated person
- A person for whom the court may appoint a guardian after the required petition and findings.
Conservatorship is a common term in some states, but Blair County's research uses Pennsylvania guardianship language. Use the local term when requesting Orphans' Court records.
Search Blair County Probate Records
The access path starts with the record type. Public Orphans' Court dockets may appear through Pennsylvania UJS Case Search when the docket is available, but many document-level estate and guardianship files still require the clerk's counter. Certified copies, older paper records, and files not shown online should be requested from the Clerk of Orphans' Court. The local Orphans' Court page also links to the Guardian Tracking System and UJS forms.
- Identify whether the request is an estate, small estate, guardianship, adoption, marriage, or old birth/death record.
- Search UJS if a public Orphans' Court docket may exist.
- Call or visit the Clerk of Orphans' Court for document copies, certified records, and older files.
- Use the Guardian Tracking System when the request concerns guardian account tracking.
- Contact Pennsylvania Department of Health for birth or death records after 1906.
Note: Adoption records are expressly described by Blair County as sealed and should not be treated as ordinary public probate files.
Blair County Probate Fees
The official Orphans' Court fee bill controls probate, guardianship, adoption, copy, and certification charges. If a filing begins a case, the research says to add a $40.25 case-opening charge to the listed costs. Copy requests are separate from filing fees.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Case-opening add-on when filing begins a case | $40.25 |
| Adoption petition including certified copy of final decree | $91.00 |
| Confirm consent to adopt | $45.00 |
| Termination of parental rights | $45.00 |
| Act 34 surcharge | $79.00 |
| Certification of document, decree, or order | $9.00 |
| Computer print-out or photocopy | $0.50 per page |
| Estate account | $165.00 |
| Settle small estate | $31.00 |
| Appointment of guardian, minor or incapacitated person | $79.00 |
| Exemplified record | $21.00 |
| Subpoena | $6.00 |
The manifest source for probate fees is the Blair County Orphans' Court fee bill.
The fee bill is useful before filing because estate, guardian, adoption, copy, and certification charges are not the same.
What Orphans' Court Records Show
Blair County Orphans' Court records may show the docket, petition type, estate or guardianship caption, fiduciary names, account filings, adjudication petitions, claims against an estate, discharge of executor or administrator, family settlement agreements, small-estate filings, guardian inventories, annual guardian accounts, final guardian accounts, and orders. Adoption files are different because they are sealed. Incapacitated-person matters may include protected details, so public access can be narrower than the existence of a docket suggests.
Early birth and death certificates from 1893 through 1906 are certified through this office at the listed fee. That is a narrow county-held date range. For later birth and death records, the state vital records office is the proper source. A request that mixes estate papers, marriage records, and vital records should be divided by record type so the clerk can route it correctly.
State Custody and Notice Tools
The probate page manifest also includes statewide custody-notice sources that are not substitutes for Orphans' Court probate records. The Pennsylvania DOC inmate and parolee locator is for state-sentenced inmates and parolees, not county probate files.
Use that source only when a probate, estate, or guardianship question also requires confirming state custody status for a person.
The manifest also identifies Pennsylvania VINE, a custody-status and criminal-case notification service.
VINE does not provide estate filings, but it may help when a family court or guardianship concern overlaps with custody-status notice needs.
Restricted Orphans' Court Records
Restricted Blair County Orphans' Court categories include sealed adoptions, some juvenile-related material, incapacitated-person information, and documents protected by court rule or order. Pennsylvania court records are governed by judiciary access policies, including the UJS case-record policy, while general agency records may fall under the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law. If a file is sealed, limited, or not visible online, the correct path is a request to the clerk or a court order, not a third-party website.
Certified copies should be requested from the originating office. Give the clerk the decedent or protected person's name, case type, approximate filing year, docket number if known, document type, and whether certification or exemplification is needed. For guardianship records, ask whether the Guardian Tracking System applies before assuming a full public file is available.
Small-estate and estate-account requests should also separate filing questions from copy questions. The fee bill lists filing charges for estate accounts, adjudication petitions, auditor appointments, claims against estates, family settlement agreements, and small-estate settlement. Those entries do not mean every estate document is open online. A practical Blair County probate records request should identify the estate or protected person first, then ask the clerk which docket entries and filed papers are public and which require a formal petition or court approval.
For family-history requests, the 1893 through 1906 birth and death record range is a narrow but useful local source. The same office can certify those older records for the listed fee, while later vital records must be requested from the state. That distinction keeps probate research, marriage-copy requests, and vital-record requests from being blended into one broad clerk question.