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Top tip for wills

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Phoenix

Phoenix Report 21 Sep 2004 18:10

Documents Online for wills just scratch the surface. At one stage it was reckoned that virtually everyone - well, excluding married women - made wills. Wills pre 1858 are scattered round the country in Record Offices. Most of those for Devon were destroyed during WW2, but there are some old transcripts to fill a few gaps. Wiltshire has a project like Documents Online to digitalise the wills and make a consolidated index. References to some wills appear in A2A, and there are lots of printed indexes. Some counties have will registers in microform, others have originals that you can handle! If you look on Genfair, there should be a Gibson Guide to wills for sale, which explains exactly what is available and where. Brenda

Christine in Herts

Christine in Herts Report 21 Sep 2004 17:56

If you are lucky, you might find some relevant Wills (in their probate format) at Documents Online - in which case you can download them for £3.50 each as pdf files. You still have to be good at reading old script though! I found a copy of my great x10 grandfather's Will there and a distant cousin has (very generously) sent me her transcription of the Wills of some other ancestors from another part of the tree. Of course, that whetted my appetite and I shall eventually succumb to the temptation of buying some more! Christine

Carole

Carole Report 21 Sep 2004 13:50

Thanks Anne, I'll give it a try. I have seen a copy of one of my husbands relatives wills, and know what you mean about listing nephews & nieces etc. Carole

Anne

Anne Report 21 Sep 2004 13:43

Since 1858 a national record has been kept of all probates on wills. It is called the probate calendar, published annually and should be available in all record offices/county archives. Sometimes they are on fiche although in my archive they are in vast sets of very large books. The two wills I sent for recently took about 5 mins to find (I did have a fairly good idea of the date of death). You send by post to York for them at £5 a copy. Anne

Carole

Carole Report 21 Sep 2004 13:36

Thanks for the tip. Where do you even start looking for wills though? Carole

Anne

Anne Report 21 Sep 2004 13:35

If you are thinking of sending for a will, here is my recent experience. As well as getting the will of my direct ancestor I have sent for ones made by childless uncles. They have been the BEST! The one I got yesterday mentioned 20 nephews and nieces and said whose children they all were. It enabled me to see who was alive when the will was made and what their married names were. Great! Anne