Wills

[MaryA]

Thanks to Daggers and our Education Officer for the following information.

Before 1858 all wills had to be proved in church courts and can be traced via county record offices, if you are lucky.

From 1858 the responsibility passed to the state courts and printed registers have been produced each year, split into national, alphabetical volumes. They can be found in Liverpool Central Library or the Lancashire Record Office up to a certain date, and later entries are on microfiche at Probate Offices, usually within court buildings.

Assuming you are interested in Lancashire wills you can search an index for pre 1858 wills at

http://www.xmission.com/~nelsonb/lws.htm

Having found a will you can see the originals at Lancashire Record office or apply to Lancashire Record Office for a copy (you will have to pay for this)

For post 1858 wills you will need to look in the indexes as stated above. To look at the actual will you then have 2 options you can see copies of the wills handwritten into large volumes at Lancashire Record office up to around the 1930's. If you want a copy of the will after 1858 onwards you can apply by post for a copy to the sub probate office in Leeds. This website tells you how and has a downloadable form.

Link to new Offices in Leeds and form

It costs £10 to get a copy this way.

The indexes are listed by date of when the Will was proven rather than the date of death.

Amendments recently made, highlighted in red.

[MaryA]

Just an extra link
http://archivedatabases.cheshire.gov.uk ... earch.aspx

The index covers the years 1492 - 1940 and contains 130,000 entries. It covers probate documents proved at Chester mainly for Cheshire residents.

[MaryA]

Thanks to our Education Officer for this additional information.

Lancashire Record Office holds wills pre 1858 that were proved at Chester (all wills were proved at the Diocesan courts until 1858). These wills are of people living in Lancashire at that time ie that includes Liverpool. They also hold the wills proved in the Archdeanory of Ripon for the same period. These are generally of people living north of Preston but still in Lancashire.

You can find an index for Lancashire wills ( I did discover it's not complete) pre 1858 by googling. It is then possibly to see these wills at Lancashire Record Office

How long does it take. As long as you have the required information name date place and the hundred - it takes afew minutes to fill in the form , then the staff have to find it, then you have to collect it, then read and make notes (this depends on the length of the will). You can get copies of the will made. The cost depends on how they have to copy it - photcopy, laser print or for a charge you can photograph.

They also hold copies of wills proved in Lancashire from 1858 to the early part of the 20th century. These cannot be copied as they are handwritten into a book. For wills post 1858 there is a probate index you can then send for a copy of the will from the York subprobate office. the last time I used it it cost £5. The probate index is available in Lancashire Record Office and Liverpool Record Office. This is up to around the 1960's thereafter there is a copy in the probate office in the Queen Elizabeth Courts in Liverpool.

[MaryA]

I know we all love to find collections of documents online rather than having to travel to places such as the National Archives, so I thought I'd post a little more information gleaned from Your Family Tree Magazine No. 78 for you.

The highest court in England and Wales from 1384 until 1858 ws the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) and its records are held at TNA under PROB 11. They have been digitised and placed online at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/ though higher resolution copies are available on www.thegenealogist.co.uk

There were also several lower level ecclesiastical courts in England and Wales, the records of which are held at many different locations, including county record offices.

For those of you with Scottish ancestors, these might be easier to find, those from 1513 to 1901 are available online at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.

For Ulster, the PRONI webside has two online databases, one that lists abstracts of wills confirmed between 1858 and 1900 and the other is a pre-1858 names database.

Since 1796 various death or estate duties have been imposed by the Government; these records are at The National Archives under Ref. IR26 and the indexes are under Ref. IR27.

Legacy Duty had a levy on those over £20 not including the value of any land, and on recipients who were not direct relatives.

Later it included property sales, with tax exemptions only applying to the spouse by 1815.

An estate worth over £100 was liable for Succession Duty between 1853 and 1949, applying to the transfer of any property at death, while Probate Duty would later raise a tax on all personal property transferred after a person's death.

At first taxes were collected by the Estate Duty Office, later becoming the Inland Revenue and brief abstracts of the wills into death duty registers were compiled. Those between 1796 and 1903 can be found at the National Archives, although those between 1904 and 1931 have been destroyed. If you are lucky you might find extra information such as the names of all recipients - useful in case the bequests were made in the wording to "all my children" and of course sometimes to identify married daughters.

[MaryA]

Wales Wills http://cat.llgc.org.uk/probate
London Signatures http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/wills/
Prerogative Court of York (PCY) Wills http://www.englishorigins.com/
Death Duty Registers http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/ and www.findmypast.com (between 1796 and 1903) otherwise the originals are on microfilm at The National Archives.
PCC wills index for the years 1384 - 1858 http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/ (subscription site)
Surrey and Home Counties index of 1500 Wills http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~engsurry/

Unfortunately it is still difficult to find details of wills online that have been proved after 11th January 1858 when the state took control from the ecclesiastical courts however, you can search the calendars at local studies libraries and record offices or the Probate Division of the High Court's public search room in High Holborn, London.

In the 28 public search rooms of probate registry offices around the country you can search their "Willfinder" by name.

[MaryA]

Thanks to Simone for yet another good site, plenty of names mentioned

http://www.familydeeds.org/

[Sisterbez]

They also hold copies of wills proved in Lancashire from 1858 to the early part of the 20th century. These cannot be copied as they are handwritten into a book. For wills post 1858 there is a probate index you can then send for a copy of the will from the York subprobate office. the last time I used it it cost £5. The probate index is available in Lancashire Record Office and Liverpool Record Office. This is up to around the 1960's thereafter there is a copy in the probate office in the Queen Elizabeth Courts in Liverpool.

I am not aware of any volumes at the LRO which have actual Wills written in them. However, there is a whole shelf full of huge volumes of Probate Calendars which follow on from the earlier microfiches. Post 1858 you need to apply to York. The Queen Elizabeth Courts Probate Office in Liverpool only holds Wills for the last 50 years - after that they go to York.

It's probably worth mentioning 2 things here:
1. It takes a long time to receive a Will from York as the Wills are not actually held there - they are in a storage facility in the Birmingham area.
2. What you will get is a photocopy of the Office Copy of the Will made at the time of Probate. If you want to see a copy of the original will you have to make this clear in your application. This will increase the time it takes but the cost is the same (or was when I found this out a couple of years ago).

[Hilary]

Lancashire Record Office very definitely have volumes were the proven wills have been hand copied into the books. I was looking at one the week before last.

Having found the date of probate in the wills index you then have to look up in another file (ask the staff) to get the correct reference - these are done by date and then fill in a request slip. They are definitely only for Lancashire and all the wills I have seen have been for wills proved at Liverpool. starting oin 1858 and I think they go up to around 1920 but I have only requested pre 1900 wills myself.

Hilary
Ed Officer

[Sisterbez]

I do recall now that the staff did tell me that there were some Liverpool Wills there post 1858, but they weren't very specific and I thought they were originals.

Thank you for the info.

[Blue70]

I use the old PDF form for postal searches but make allowances for the changes. Here is the old PDF form:-

http://hmctscourtfinder.justice.gov.uk/ ... s_0405.pdf

Here is an example of a completed PDF form with amendments to include the changes in the process:-





Blue

[MaryA]

They also accept a letter, so don't worry as I never came across the form but there was no problem.

[MaryA]

Have updated the top post to reflect the new price, just hear that the cost is now £10 for a copy Will, don't know how long that increase has been in force but it's quite a jump from £6, especially when the last price rise was from £5 to £6.

[MaryA]

To complement any online Probate indexes, the Probate Service for England & Wales have launched an online index to wills and administrations from 1996 onwards. These can be found here https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills where a copy of the Will can also be ordered at a cost of £10, it's even easier than the previous method of downloading the form and sending it off but costs the same.

[Karen]

There has been an update to https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills to include Probate indexes from 1858 to present.

I fear my bank account is about to suffer as I've already found a few that I want to purchase!

[MaryA]

If you come across Probate during the war that was in an unexpected place, this might be the answer.
Probate Commissioner, London Probate Registry, says 'the entire Principle Registry was evacuated to Llandudno during the Second World War in 1942 and I can only assume the same happened during the First World War'.

[JohnnyO]

Hopefully this may help anybody searching for probate, wills, etc. in the Republic of Ireland.

Firstly, there is no facility to order and receive a PDF copy of any documentation online, as you can do here in the UK. All requests have to be put in writing using form PAS1. Here is a link: http://www.courts.ie/Courts.ie/library3 ... 202014.pdf

This document also gives the costs involved. It is advisable to know the reference number in advance, as there is a postal search fee of 15 Euros, as well as the cost of the copy document. My copy will cost 15 Euros. I did not need to pay the extra 15 Euros as I had the reference.Please note that only Euros are accepted. The Post Office in the UK will not send a Postal Order in Euros. The only way of paying for a document is to get a bank draft in Euros. I have just ordered one, which my bank charged £6.50 on top of the payment to 'Courts Service', which is what the draft needs to be made out to.

If a will etc. is more than 20 years old, the form and bank draft should be sent to: National Archives, Bishop Street, Dublin 8. You can search for records here: http://www.nationalarchives.ie/search-the-archives/ which will give a copy of Probate and any associated references that you can copy into PAS1

If a will, probate or letters of administration etc. is less than 20 years ago, then the PAS1 form must be sent to the appropriate District Probate Registries. These are:
Mayo
Cavan/Longford
Tipperary
Cork
Louth/Monaghan
Galway/Roscommon
Kilkenny/Carlow/Laois
Donegal
Limerick/Clare
Westmeath/Offaly
Sligo/Leitrim
Kerry
Waterford
Wexford

On the bottom right of this page is a hyperlinked list. http://www.courts.ie/Courts.ie/library3 ... endocument. Clicking on any District will take you to a page specific to that region, where you can find the postal address to send your form and money to. It is worthwhile checking by email or telephone to ensure that the cost of the service is the same as the National Archive, as local Districts can charge more:

I hope this is useful to you

[MaryA]

I think this is a newish project, apparently belonging to the The Guild of One-Place Studies but you might get lucky in finding something of yours, or alternatively you might like to add to it
http://transcribedwills.co.uk/

[MaryA]

York's Archbishops Registers Revealed provides free access to over 20,000 images of Registers produced by the Archbishops of York, 1225-1650, in addition to a growing searchable index of names, subjects, places and organisations.
https://archbishopsregisters.york.ac.uk/