Wills

[Black Widow]

Not sure if this is the right place for this, does anyone know where I can search and get copies of wills from?

[Northern Lass]

Hi going to move this to General Discussion

just want you to see it afore I move it

[MarkCDodd]

TheGenalogist is indexing all the PCC (Prerogative Court of Canterbury) wills plus plenty of others they have collected. They have so far indexed and photographed about 800,000 PCC wills which is about 75% of the total. They seem to be adding quite a few each month.

Prior to 1858 your are almost certaint to find a will, if it exists for a given person, in the PCC collection.

TheGenealogist also has Bristol, Edinburgh, some Irish, Leicestershire, Northampton and Yorkshire indexes of Wills.

You can also search for the PCC wills (Indexing provided by TheGenealogist) at the national Archives here...

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/wills.asp

You will need to use ARCHON to find the depositories of other wills.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/

Some wills and many probate notices an be found in the Churchwarden Books, Bishops Transcripts and Parish Chests.

If you search the National Archives (or local archives pointed to by ARCHON) for a name, you often find wills and probates amongst bundles of documents kept as "sets".

For instance, I found a heap of Dodd ones in the Shropshire Archives.

Probably the easiest way is to use the Access To Archives search facility.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/advanced-search.aspx?searchType=a

Australian Wills are slowly being fully indexed and placed online.

Very soon all the Victorian wills up to 1992 will be online.

Currently those up to 1925 can be found here.

http://proarchives.imagineering.com.au/index_search.asp?searchid=54

[gardener]

Hi
It really depends on what time period and which area you are looking for.
As Mark says the National Archives is a good place to start.
I often go to the Genuki site http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/index.html . Each county ususually has some information under Probate. Derbyshire has a collection of submitted abstracts but I think most counties tend to point to the appropriate archives. Some of the local archives have searchable databases online, such as Cheshire http://www.cheshire.gov.uk/Recordoffice/Wills/Home.htm
If it is a Black country will then you may find it listed with an abstract here: http://www.blackcountryhistory.org/
Wills were registered depending on which diocese the person was in so Derbyshire wills turn up in Lichfield archives too. And if the person left property in more than one diocese then the will was proved at Canterbury I think.
If you can't find what you looking for then try which ever archives is closest, I'm sure they will help.

[Black Widow]

Thank I will check them out

[Vikinghunter]

What about wills in London?

And, pardonm my ignorance, but what is ARCHON exactly?

Thanks

VH

[MarkCDodd]

Archon lists the repositories of archive information by location.

It includes U.K and overseas repositories.