Datasets:

referencesource
/

will-execution-requirements-by-state

pretty_name: >-
  Will execution requirements by state: witnesses, notarization, holographic and
  electronic wills
license: other
license_name: source-terms-cited
license_link: https://referencesource.org/will-execution-requirements-by-state/
language:
  - en
tags:
  - reference-data
  - provenance
  - referencesource-org
configs:
  - config_name: default
    data_files:
      - split: train
        path: data/records.jsonl

Will execution requirements by state: witnesses, notarization, holographic and electronic wills

Canonical, always-current version: https://referencesource.org/will-execution-requirements-by-state/ Machine-readable: https://referencesource.org/will-execution-requirements-by-state/data.json — this mirror is a point-in-time copy.

Last verified: 2026-08-18
Stale after: 2028-02-09 (past this date, prefer the canonical copy — it re-verifies on a cadence this snapshot does not)
Records: 50

What each US state's probate/estates code requires for a will to be validly executed: how many witnesses, whether they must sign in the testator's presence, whether notarization can substitute for witnesses, whether holographic (handwritten, unwitnessed) wills are valid, whether electronic wills are authorized, and whether a self-proving affidavit is available. Each record is one state, from that state's statute. Answers 'how many witnesses does a will need in [state]', 'is a handwritten will valid in [state]', and 'does a will need to be notarized in [state]'. The general answer (two witnesses, no notary) is right in most states and wrong in the ones that matter: holographic wills are valid in roughly half of states and void in the rest, Colorado and North Dakota allow notarization instead of witnesses, Louisiana requires a notary plus two witnesses, and a growing list (Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Indiana...) authorizes electronic wills. People executing DIY wills hit exactly these edges. Existing charts are will-vendor marketing (Gentreo, estate-bee) with no statute citations.

Provenance — what every record carries

Every record carries source (the URL the value was read from) and source_quote (a verbatim quote from that page stating it). A value you cannot check against its page is indistinguishable from an invented one; these can all be checked. Each record is also individually addressable on the canonical site at its url.

Licence position

Facts from state probate statutes; statutory requirements are not copyrightable. Citation note, checked 2026-10-14: The Georgia and New Jersey rows are cited to codes.findlaw.com rather than to an official state host, because neither state publishes its code anywhere a single section can be fetched at a stable URL — Georgia's own free O.C.G.A., which the General Assembly contracts LexisNexis to publish, is a JavaScript application at advance.lexis.com that serves no statutory text to a fetch; and New Jersey's official statutes site, lis.njleg.state.nj.us, is a Folio frameset whose internal document numbers are not stable section addresses. That mirror now sits behind a Cloudflare challenge and returns 403 to everyone, an invented-slug control included, so these rows cannot at present be re-checked against the page they cite. The values were read from those pages when the records were harvested and nothing here has changed them; what is missing is any ongoing check that they are still current.

Facts are not copyrightable; what this dataset takes from each source is a fact plus a short attributed quote linking back to the page that states it.

Sources

Fields

See any record in data/records.jsonl — field names are self-describing, and the canonical page for each record renders them with labels: https://referencesource.org/will-execution-requirements-by-state/