The genealogy world has been happily stunned this week by a massive drop in the price of post-1858 probate records and wills for the United Kingdom. When the UK Government’s Find A Will site was first launched a few years ago, wills were £ 5 and over the years that became £ 10. This week they have dropped back to only £ 1.50 each! I have heard that this may be a temporary price drop for only 12 months but have not seen the source of that information, so this may or may not be the case.
What Does This Mean For Family Historians?
In a nutshell, it means you have a golden opportunity to purchase probate records not just for all your direct ancestors, but also others in the broader family. If you recall from a recent blog post, wills can be a great way to find out who was in the extended family and how they were related to the willmaker. Often the quality of the relationships between family members was also revealed.
Finding the Probate Record
There are three ways to find the probate record details so that you can order it. There is a search facility on the site itself. This a simple surname and year search. Please note that year may not be the same as the year of death. Some estates were not settled till months or years later. The year they are asking for is the year of probate. There may also be difficulties finding the right records if the surname you are searching is common.
I recommend doing your searching at one of the other sites who have indexed these records. In most cases it will be much quicker. Once you’ve found the record, use the details to place your order at the Find A will site.
The two sites that I am aware of that have indexed the UK probate calendars are Ancestry and FindMyPast. You do not need subscriptions to do a simple search of the index.
FindMyPast holds the indexes from 1858-1959 at this stage. Its search page is slightly different in that it searches by keyword and first letter of surname. See image below.
FindMyPast Probate Calendar search page
I would advise trying one and if you don’t find your ancestor, try the other. They each use a different search algorithm so you may get lucky on the second search!
Enjoy this little windfall of genealogical joy. It may only last a year, so fill your information coffers while you can. Good luck and happy hunting!
Last week we looked at the uses of wills for family history research, and what you might hope to find in your ancestor’s will. This week, we’ll take a look at why they are often not used, and tackle the problem of finding wills.
Why Are Wills So Under-Utilised?
To be honest, I think people are a little scared of them! The reasons that I have heard often boil down to misconceptions, or things that can be easily overcome. It’s worth the effort! Here are some of them:
‘They’re too hard to read’
True, the writing can be daunting when you first look at it. However, practice does make it easier over time. Here’s a nice little tutorial from the UK’s National Archives on how to read the old script in wills.
As we discussed last week, wills generally have a fairly set pattern in terms of content. My suggestion is to look at that first paragraph where you know the words are fairly standard and use it as a kind of ‘codebreaker’ for the rest of the document. That way, you can also cover patterns in individual writing styles too.
‘My ancestors weren’t rich, so there’s no point in looking for a will’
Anyone who was an adult, not insane or a criminal, and was male or an unmarried female may have left a will.
Men with any amount of property who had children would be likely keen to make a will. If they didn’t and his wife remarried, all his property would legally pass to the new husband and any children that man might have with his wife, leaving his own children unprovided for.
People often made wills if they were going into the military or a sea-faring occupation, or had any reason to believe they would be at risk of dying before their time.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the majority of people made wills. It’s human nature to think you’re immortal, even today! Based on comparison with burial records, it seems that between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 men left wills. That’s pretty good odds that you will find at least one in each family line even if not your direct ancestor. Remember the FAN Club!
‘There wouldn’t be much useful information in them’
It depends on what you mean by ‘useful information’. No, there are no vital records type dates in them. But remember, your ancestors are more than just dates and names. As we discussed last week, wills provide information about your ancestor’s relations and relationships, as well as an idea of his circumstances. And all written in his own voice.
‘I reckon they’d be expensive, they’ve been near a lawyer!’
You’d be surprised. Depending on where you are getting them from, they range from absolutely free through to about the same cost as a single birth, marriage or death certificate in most cases.
‘I wouldn’t know where to find wills’
Okay, there is some level of complexity in finding wills, as they are not usually all in one place for a single country. I am not even going to try to list all the sources for all the countries, or this blog will become a book! I would suggest taking a look here (and here for the UK only, and here for Australia only).
In a nutshell, the location of wills is dependent on the time period, the country, and the location within that country (e.g. county/state). Often they are found in national, state or local archives and record offices near the testator’s last known residence. Increasingly they are to be found digitised and online at some record office and subscription websites but there is still a long way to go.
Finding Wills In England
Probably the most complicated country for finding wills (and the one where most of my readers have ancestors) is England. Therefore, I’ll spend some time explaining how the location of English wills can be determined. If you can locate a will in England, you’ll find the rest of the world a doddle!
Finding Wills After 1858
After 1858, it’s simple. Go here. They’re all there and at about the same price as a certificate. All you need to know is the person’s full name and approximate year of death to find them.
Finding Wills Before 1858
Before 1858, wills were dealt with by the ecclesiastic courts (i.e. the Church). The country is split into dioceses for administration purposes. Each diocese has a bishop and a cathedral. The first step is to work out in which diocese the testator was living at the time of their death. A quick and easy way to do this is to use the FamilySearch Wiki. Enter the name of the parish in the search box and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions are listed in the box on the right of the parish page. That box also tells you the legal jurisdiction and the local archives which in most cases will house the wills proved within that diocese.
You should be able to order the wills online through the record office website in most cases, and if not you can do so by post. Wills for some dioceses are now online and more continue to appear all the time. Check the catalogues of your subscription sites regularly and remember Google is your friend!
Finding Wills When Your Ancestor Had Extensive Or Multiple Properties
If an ancestor had a property that extended across the border into other dioceses (or several properties around the country) his will went to a higher authority to be proven. Each diocese belongs to either the Province of Canterbury or ‘PCC’ (in the South) or the Province of York or ‘PCY’ (in the North). The provinces are headed by an Archbishop. If all his property was within one Province, that Province administered the will. If his property extended beyond one Province, the Province of Canterbury administered it. Also, all wills between 1653-1660 were administered by the PCC.
PCC wills are easy to get. If you have a subscription to TheGenealogist.co.uk or Ancestry.com (or can access either of them through your local library), images are accessible within that subscription. If not, go to the National Archives website and search your ancestor’s name. You can download the will for £3.50.
The National Archives in Kew, England
PCY wills are available from a less commonly known source, the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, but the search and ordering is done through this link at FindMyPast. PCY wills cost £7.50 and are delivered electronically within a few days.
Finding Wills Means Finding Your Ancestors’ Lives
So as you can see, the hardest part is working out where the will is. Once you know that, it’s generally easy to get a copy. Then the hardest part is reading it, but with practice, you will find that gets easier too. If you need assistance, you can always call on a professional genealogist for help.
Invest some time and effort into finding your ancestors’ (or their FAN Club’s) wills, and I really believe it will pay off for you! Your tree will be better verified, and you will know a lot more about your ancestors’ lives.
I had a wonderful stroke of luck this week! I broke through a longstanding brick wall on my Field line, confirmed using my ancestors’ wills. As suspected, the middle name Palmer used across several generations was a massive clue. However, the partnership that brought it about was back at the turn of the eighteenth century and in a different place. Therefore, it’s taken a while to find it.
Because the find was not where I expected it to be, I was extra-specially careful to ensure I had all my ducks lined up evidence-wise. I couldn’t claim this Edward Field as my own just because he was born at the right time and married a Palmer. These are both common names, and extremely common at the time in the parish where I found them. They were both prominent families in the area, and both had many branches. Using ancestors’ wills and wills of others in these local families allowed me to pinpoint where they fit in, and why the name Francis popped up as the eldest son’s forename for several generations too! Now I’ve untangled all the Field and Palmer lines I can sense a couple of one-name studies in the wind. I know how I’m wired…
I spent all this week burying my head in wills, so I was reminded why it would be a good topic for this week’s blog. They are sadly often under-utilised as a resource, and often so rich with detail.
Why You Should Look For Your Ancestors’ Wills
Wills are a treasure trove of information. Some of the uses you can put them to are:
Confirming your research
Untangling family branches
Very useful when the same names are appearing over and over in different branches. Wills will often make it clear who is who.
Determining not only family relationships but often their quality
Who did they leave out that was still alive or who did they leave an insultingly trivial amount of money? (A caveat, a child ‘cut off with only a shilling’ may have received their inheritance already. Their parent may have set them up in a business or home, and the ‘shilling’ is just to prevent them arguing that they were left out of the will as an oversight).
Sometimes they used very blunt and/or revealing comments to explain why certain bequests were made. (See the snippet of another of my ancestor’s wills below as an example!)
The testator would often list their children’s names. The daughters were listed using their married surnames. Possibly the husband’s name and the names of their children would appear too.
Finding an unexpected place of origin
The testator would usually give instructions regarding their burial preferences. Many just specified the local churchyard. However, if they had moved to the vicinity during their life they may have asked to be buried in a family vault in their original village’s church for example.
Hearing the voice of your ancestor
Not literally of course! But this is one of the few common documents where you will get a feel for your ancestor’s personality. It’s a lot more freeform than certificates for example. Unless your ancestor left a journal, diary or memoir this may be as close as you get to reading their thoughts and opinions in their own voice.
A snippet of Charles Girling’s will, naming his housekeeper’s five children (plus one on the way!) as his own. He clearly showed a will to live, rather poignantly also covering any further children he may have by her in this will.
What Is Contained In Your Ancestors’ Wills?
This can vary a little, but a formal will often follows this fairly standard pattern:
Sometimes a brother, brother in law or close friend
Instructions for distribution of their property, listing their beneficiaries
The date the will was prepared
This could be very close to the death date, or years before if they were organised!
The signature (or ‘cross’ if they were illiterate) of the testator and the witnesses.
The date probate was granted
This could also be very close to the death date if straightforward, or years afterwards if it was complicated or contested!
What Won’t You (Usually) Find?
Wills of married women
these are rare before 1882 as up till then, women did not have their own property. Anything they brought into the marriage became the property of their husband. Therefore she had no legal right to leave anything to anyone.
Wills of spinsters, on the other hand, can be gold, especially if there were a lot of nieces and nephews!
Once a woman was widowed, she may have had a will drawn up if she did not intend to get remarried.
A list of every possession
This is called an ‘inventory’ and is a separate document to the will. If it survives, it will be located in the probate file.
The inventory is well worth looking for, as literally EVERYTHING got listed. It provides a fascinating snapshot into your ancestor’s life. My ancestor John Girling (father of the Charles named above) made his own inventory. This was quite unusual and slightly OCD, as he also repeatedly updated it over the years. He went into excruciating detail which was great, as it revealed his previously unknown military life, but sadly not the identity of his mother. He noted the subject, artist and value of every painting he owned except her portrait, about which he was irritatingly vague.
Dates of births, marriages and deaths
This is not the document for finding these details. You may find out from the will that marriages have happened, or children are still minors, or other family members are deceased, but the dates will not appear. However, using the date the will was signed can help narrow down a timeframe for those events and help you locate them in the appropriate sources.
Stay tuned for the next gripping episode…
Next week I will be looking at and dismantling some of the reasons why wills are so commonly ignored, as well as how to find and use them.
In the meantime, has anyone found anything in wills that they never would have known without seeing their will? For me, finding out Charles Girling’s ‘wife’ was actually his housekeeper was an eye-opener, and has saved me countless hours of continuing searches for their marriage! Leave your comments below…
