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Wills

At their best wills can be a mine of information for the family historian - they can also be a source of immense frustration when the testator rambles on semi-legibly for pages without naming 'my wife' or 'my children'. Tracking down wills made before the inception of the Central Probate Registry in 1858 can be difficult and sometime expensive and the resulting documents, when found, can be brief or run to many pages. The most extreme examples I have found so far are the wills of:
Robert Olby
[1815-1851]		 Robert's Prerogative Court of Canterbury [PCC] will, made on his deathbed on 27th August 1851, was short and to the point 'I will and bequeath to my dear wife Elizabeth Olby all my goods and chattels.'
Ebenezer Hall
[1820-1911]		 Ebenezer's will, made on 14th September 1905, ran to 38 pages and provided a wealth of detail about his family, friends and colleagues. I was able to construct an almost complete three-generation tree of Ebenezer's siblings, their wives, children and grandchildren. Some of the family relationships revealed were complex, including at least one marriage, at that time irregular, of a man with his deceased brother's widow. He also left substantial sums to several churches, including Holy Trinity, Middleton-by-Wirksworth where he was born and had lived as a boy.
Summaries of around 100 wills and probate records dating from the 17th century onwards.

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This page is © Chris Newall 2005
Author : Chris Newall
Page created on : 10 March 2005
Last updated on : 10 March 2005