Benefits of Wills

AI generated image using WIX

I find a source of potentially a lot of information that is often over looked is wills.

The amount of information included in wills varies on average, I usually get some of the siblings (mainly living ones only), some of the children (mainly living ones only) and at least one parent. In the many wills I have read, I have only ever come across a couple of wills that did not advance my genealogical research is some way. The most beneficial will I have so far come across allowed me to draw up a family tree involving four generations and included cousins, aunts/uncles, even in-laws and also gave an insight into what was occurring for the family and the location where they lived.

I always begin my will search in the location (county/state) where the person died. Sometimes my search does not end there, but most times it does. If I can not find a relevant record I look up to 20 years either side of the death date – I have had one will registered about 10 years before the death date and about three records now that a probate record was registered about 20 years after the death date.

I would also suggest that depending on the time period and/or the person you are looking for a will for I would also search in other countries, outside of the country they died in. For example, I have had a person who died in New Zealand who had a will in NZ but also have a will in Scotland. I have had a number of people who died in the 1600s and some in the 1700s in the United States of America have their will registered in England (have no will registered in the USA). I have also had a couple of people who died in Australia have will in Australia along with a will in England. And finally, I have had a couple of people who died in England have a will in Scotland or have two wills – one in England and one in Scotland. Most of these, I can say, had more than one will due to having land, an estate, in both countries.

So where can you find wills?

A majority of will and probate records that can be located online are behind some sort of pay wall (though not all). That being said due to the benefits I have gotten from them I am willing to pay. The following are links to pages where you can search for will and probate records for various countries – these are the countries I have looked in to locate will and probate records.

Scottish wills

The best place I have found for wills in Scotland is on Scotland’s People. The direct link is: https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/search-records/legal-records/wills

English wills

I have found most of the English wills within the ‘Prerogative Court of Canterbury’ (PCC). FamilySearch have put together a page with links to sites and indexes for the PCC. Their page is:  https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Prerogative_Court_of_the_Archbishop_of_Canterbury

Australian Wills

For wills in Australia you need to search each state separately. Here are useful pages for Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.

For Victorian wills and probate records go to: https://prov.vic.gov.au/explore-collection/explore-topic/wills-and-probates

For Queensland wills and probate records got to: https://www.courts.qld.gov.au/services/wills-and-estates/searches-for-wills-and-probate

For New South Wales wills and probate records here is a great page put together by the NSW State Library with links to various types/sources for these records:  https://guides.sl.nsw.gov.au/births-deaths-marriages/wills

HINT: remember when looking for vital records and perhaps even will and probate records within Australia, you may need to look in another state. The reason being that each state (colony) began at a different time so until it officially became a colony all the records were held by the colony it divided off from.

New Zealand Wills

For New Zealand wills and probate records here is the page put together by the government with information and links to these records: https://www.archives.govt.nz/research-guidance/research-guides/identity/searching-digitised-probates

USA Wills

I have found that once I know the state the person died in there are a couple of places on FamilySearch.org I like to look through. The first is to go to the ‘Research Wiki’ and to the specific page the state/county where the person died and second place is the catalogue. I put in a search for the location and then scroll down the list to the ‘probate records’ and look through the books attached.

Various locations

Ancestry.com, The Genealogist and Findmypast have various probate/will records for all over the world. You might find it useful to search these sites.