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Help with National Wills Index collections
The National Wills Index brings together a large number of will indexes, radically simplifying the process of locating a will prior to the establishment of a centralized system in 1858. Currently covering 90% of English counties, it minimizes the effort required to negotiate your way through the large variety of church courts. The information given in the index allows you to determine when and where a will was proved, providing you with the information required to then apply for a copy of the will itself. The rapidly growing collection includes the sets of records shown below, all available exclusively on Origins.net. Find out more about National Wills Index collections
The Archdeaconry Court of London was one of the London church courts that dealt with testamentary matters. The index of over 5,000 records, mainly from the first half of the 18th century, also contains numerous records of mariners.
The indexes in this collection show the names and dates of several million wills and other probate documents. Spanning more than five centuries across Britain, the indexes show you where to go to find the original documents.
Abstracts of wills, administrations, guardianships, and full inventories from the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society covering Cheltenham during the period 1660-1740.
This collection, complied by the Gloucestershire Record Office, completes the calendar for Gloucester wills available on Origins.net, ending at 1858, the date on which probate was transferred to (civil) district registries.
This index embraces all wills, inventories, administration bonds, accounts and other related documents which survive among the records of the Archdeaconries of Huntingdon (Hitchin Division) and St Albans. Copies can be ordered online.
Kent has the largest collection of probate records of any English county but there are as yet no published indexes to much of this material. Indexes to all of these records will become available on the National Wills Index (NWI) in 2012. Kent probate indexes currently available on the NWI include: 28,031 wills - West Kent Wills Index (1440-1857) and 27,812 inventories - Kent inventories (1571-1842).
This dataset indexes all the surviving probate records of the bishop and archdeacon of Oxford, covering the period 1516 to 1857, and of the Oxfordshire Peculiars, covering the period 1547-1856.
Grants of probate for the period 1688 to January 1858. Original documents provide a great deal of valuable information to the family historian and copies of these can be ordered online.
Fully indexed abstracts of every Surrey will known to still exist, over 29,800 abstracts. The index includes names of over a half a million people mentioned in these wills. Free text search of the abstracts.
Over 10,000 wills proved in the Prerogative & Exchequer Courts of York between 1267 and 1500. Originals are held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives and copies can be ordered online.
Over 25,000 wills proved in the 54 peculiar courts of the Province of York from 1383 to 1883. Originals are held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives and copies of these wills can be ordered online.
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