More English Wills Online

The focus of this week's update to the Findmypast portfolio is more than 430,000 British wills and probate records from the collection acquired from Origins.net.

The Prerogative & Exchequer Courts of York Probate Index 1688-1858 contains over 263,000 wills that were proved in the ecclesiastical courts of York. The province of York had jurisdiction in the counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Westmorland and Yorkshire. Although over 80% of the records relate to Yorkshire, people from all over the British Isles and overseas had property in the province and had their wills proved in the Prerogative or Exchequer Court of York.

Kent Wills & Probate Indexes, 1328-1890 consists of over 63,000 transcript records from seven different ecclesiastical Church of England courts compiled from the West Kent Probate index 1750-1890, West Kent Probate Index 1440-1857, Kent Inventories 1571-1842 and Kent Will Abstracts 1328-1691.

Lichfield Consistory Court Wills, 1650-1700 contains over 28,000 records and consists of administration applications, inventories of the testators’ property, and wills covering the entire counties of Staffordshire and Derbyshire, north Shropshire and north Warwickshire.

York Medieval Probate Index, 1267-1500 is an index to over 28,000 records with 10,000 wills and related documents proved in the province of York prior to the 16th century. Compiled from original documents held by the Borthwick Institute for Archives, the York Medieval Probate Index is available online exclusively at Findmypast.

Surrey & South London Will Abstracts, 1470-1856 has 26,000 wills containing over 29,000 names taken from the will registers held at the London Metropolitan Archives.

Sussex, Chichester Consistory Court Wills Index, 1482-1800 has indexes to over 22,000 wills covering the four archdeaconries of the diocese; Horsham, Hastings, Brighton & Lewes and Chichester itself. Each record includes a transcript of the original index that can include the testator’s name, occupation/status, residence, the date the will was proved, the court it was proved in, the document type and reference.

York Medieval Probate Index, 1267-1500 is an index to over 28,000 records with 10,000 wills and related documents proved in the province of York prior to the 16th century. Compiled from original documents held by the Borthwick Institute for Archives, the York Medieval Probate Index is available online exclusively at Findmypast.

Gloucestershire Wills & Administrations, 1801-1858 is an index of 14,000 original wills for the Consistory Court of Gloucester.  The court held jurisdiction for 307 parishes and virtually covered the whole of the ancient county and some smaller Peculiar Courts with the exception of Bristol.

Over 570 pages of Cheltenham Probate Abstracts, 1660-1740, have also been added.

Findmypast isn't the only source of wills newly online this week. The Essex Record Office which has about 70,000 wills dating from the 1400s to 1858, have had digital images of about 20,000 of these wills available online through their subscription service Essex Ancestors have now uploaded a further 22,500. See information at www.essexrecordofficeblog.co.uk/where-theres-a-will-major-update-to-essex-ancestors/