Pre-1858 English Wills – A Very Rough Guide From 1384-1858, probate in England and Wales was handled by the ecclesiastical courts. The country was firstly divided in two parts: the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) handled probate for the south part of the country for people, on the whole, with more money and for people whose estates were in more than one county, and the Prerogative Court of York (PCY) handled probate for wealthy people from the north of England. All the PCC registered copy wills are easy to look up and download from the National Archives nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/wills.htm UK at a cost of £3.30 each. Always start here because it is easy. There were many other probate courts and the simplest way to find the mostly likely court that handled your ancestors probate is on FamilySearch. Go to maps.familysearch.org/ and type in the name of the last parish your ancestor lived in before death. By selecting the parish in question and clicking on the JURISDICTIONS button in the centre of the box, you will find the most likely Probate Court where the will would be found. A book at the Toronto FHC goes a bit further by giving the three or four most likely courts where you may find a will. The next place to look online for a will would be the National Wills Index at origins.net/nwiwelcome.aspx They have free indexes to wills from Chester, Devon, Hertfordshire, some of Lancashire, and Oxfordshire, and you can then purchase digital copies of the wills. They have indexes (not free) to the Archdeaconry of London (1700-1800), Chichester Consistory Wills 1282-1800, Gloucestershire, Kent, Lichfield Consistory wills 1650-1700, Surrey Peculiars 1660-1751, York Peculiars 1383-1883 and York Medieval Probate 1660-1751. Origins also has abstracts and actual wills that can be purchased for many of the previously mentioned locations. Origins has good research guides for wills. This is just a tiny rough guide to probate in England; FamilySearch Wiki has a much better description here. https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/England_Probate_Records
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 00:25:33 +0000
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