Medieval source material on the internet: Probate records

Probate records

For a brief guide to wills, click here

For English probate indexes in Ancestry's UK and Ireland Collection, click here

• Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858 (Public Record Office, DocumentsOnline)
  Images of registered wills available as pay-per-view, with a free index. Unfortunately the index is not very accurate for the earlier part of this period. Although wildcards can be used to try to find mistranscribed names, the indexes published by the British Record Society should still be checked for safety.
  The PCC was the highest probate court in England, and most of those with higher social status tended to have their wills proved there.
• Fifty earliest English wills in the Court of Probate, London: A. D. 1387-1439: with a priest's of 1454 (Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, University of Michigan)
  Searchable text, from F.J. Furnivall's edition of 1882 (reprinted 1964) - Early English Text Society, Original Series, vol. 78
• The Tudor Inventories from Appleby [Leicestershire], 1530-1601 (Alan Roberts, Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies)
  List of 33 inventories, and transcripts of 9
• Bolsover [Derbyshire] Surnames - an index to archive sources (Mike Spathaky)
  Includes Bolsover wills at Lichfield, as well as some other 16th century sources
• Brinkworth [Wiltshire] wills, to 1650: list, texts pp.6-40 and pp.41-75, and name index (Clive Henly, GENUKI)
• Buckinghamshire Wills Database 1483-1858 (Buckinghamshire County Council/Buckinghamshire Family History Society)
  Index of over 35,000 wills proved in the archdeaconry court, and of some of the administrations granted.
• List of wills in the Buxton Papers (The Buxton Papers, Cambridge University Library)
  Index of wills among the papers of the Buxton family of Norfolk; 15th century and later
• Cheshire Wills Database Online, 1492-1940 (Cheshire County Record Office)
• J. P. Earwaker, ed., Lancashire and Cheshire wills and inventories at Chester, with an appendix of abstracts of wills now lost or destroyed (1884) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Chetham Society, new series, volume 3. Transcripts of selected documents, 1477-1746, including wills now lost.
• J. P. Earwaker, ed., Lancashire and Cheshire wills and inventories, 1572 to 1696, now preserved at Chester, with an appendix of Lancashire and Cheshire wills and inventories proved at York of Richmond, 1542 to 1649 (1893) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Chetham Society, new series, volume 28. mainly selected abstracts.
• 16th- and 17th-century wills from Cleobury Mortimer [Shropshire] [formerly at http://www.xea95.dial.pipex.com/cleomortwills.htm; not available, 28/10/2001; see the Internet Archive's copy of this page, from July 2001] (Chris Potter)
• Cornish Wills proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (Kathie Weigel, Cornish Genealogy Database)
  Lists of 16th- and 17th-century wills, including complete coverage for 1558-1604, 1620-1629 and 1653-1656; there are also abstracts for some of the 17th-century wills
• Derbyshire Probate Records (Rosemary Lockie, GENUKI)
  Submitted abstracts, in progress
• H. F. Berry, ed., Register of Wills and Inventories of the Diocese of Dublin in the Time of Archbishops Tregury and Walton, 1457-1483 (1898) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Transcript of Latin text with English translation. Also includes visitations and excommunications.
• [James Raine, ed.,] Wills and inventories illustrative of the history, manners, language, statistics, &c., of the northern counties of England, from the eleventh century downwards. Part 1. (1835) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Surtees Society volume 2. Transcripts, some in Latin, from the 11th century to 1581, mainly from the Durham diocesan registry.
• Documents of Record concerning Testaments (The Records of Earls Colne; Cambridge University)
  Transcripts of testamentary records relating to Earls Colne, Essex, 15th century and later
• Emmison's Elizabethan Life [Essex]: Home, Work and Land, The wills of Gentry, The wills of Merchants and The wills of Yeomen (Mike Foster, GENUKI)
  Indexes to names from F.G. Emmison's Elizabethan life series - the first from Home, work & land: from Essex wills and sessions and manorial records (1976), and the other three from Wills of Essex gentry & yeomen preserved in the Essex Record Office (1980)
• Wills of Eyam [Derbyshire] residents 1586 to 1650 (GENUKI)
  List of wills at Lichfield Joint Record Office
• Gilling [Yorkshire] Testamentary Wills (Adrian and Gill Smith, APL-385)
  List, 15th and 16th centuries, John Marwood's History of Gilling
• Gloucestershire County Council: Genealogical Database
  Includes index to wills proved at Gloucester, 1541-1858
• Early Gloucestershire Probate Records (Leslie Mahler, GENUKI)
  Indexes and abstracts, 16th and 17th centuries, in progress
• Central and South Gloucestershire Probate Records (Rosemary Lockie, GENUKI)
  Submitted abstracts, in progress
• Hampshire Record Office's online archive catalogue
  Includes references to all Hampshire wills proved in the courts of Winchester diocese to 1858 (including the Consistory Court, Archdeaconry of Winchester Court and Peculiar Courts).
• The Last Testament of King Henry II of England (Wolfram and other genealogies)
  Latin text, from John Nicholas, ed., Collection of all the Wills, now known to be extant, of the Kings and Queens of England
• Herefordshire Probate Records (Rosemary Lockie, GENUKI)
  Submitted abstracts, in progress
• Arthur Hussey, Herne [Kent] Wills: Abstracts.- I (Kent Archaeological Society)
  Text of a paper originally published in Archaeologia Cantiana, vol. 28, pp. 83-114 (1909) Abstracts of wills from the 14th and 15th centuries, with notes on some families
• Abstracts of probate documents, Hungerford and Wantage area (in progress; Nick Hidden)
• Medieval & Tudor Kent P.C.C. & C.C.C. Wills (in progress; Kent Archaeological Society)
  Transcripts of Kent wills from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and the Consistory Court of Canterbury by Leland Lewis Duncan, with indexes by surname and place name
• Index of wills in West Kent, [1383] to 1650 (including some abstracts; Jean Fox)
  1. Rochester Consistory Court, 1440-1561 [See also under Rochester]
  2. Card index in CKS, Maidstone, of wills proved in Prerogative Court of Canterbury to 1653
  3. Deanery of Shoreham, wills and administrations, 1614-1821
  4. Prerogative Court of Canterbury wills 1383-1629 [West Kent]
  5. Abstract of Probate Acts, Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1630-1649 (parishes in 1-3)
  6. Commissary Court of London (parishes in 1-3)
• Kentish Administrations, A.D. 1559 TO 1603 (Kent Archaeological Society)
  List of administrations from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, compiled by Leland L. Duncan, from Archaeologia Cantiana, volume 18 (1889)
• Kentish Administrations, A.D. 1604-1649 (Kent Archaeological Society)
  List of administrations from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, compiled by Leland L. Duncan, from Archaeologia Cantiana, volume 20 (1893)
• 16th- and 17th-century wills from Kinlet [Shropshire] [formerly at http://www.xea95.dial.pipex.com/kinletwills.htm; not available, 28/10/2001; see the Internet Archive's copy of this page, from July 2001] (Chris Potter)
• [Francis Collins, ed.,] Wills & administrations from the Knaresborough court rolls with index to original wills, &c., at Somerset House (1905) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Surtees Society, volume 110. Volume 2 of Knaresborough wills and associated documents, covering abstracts 1607-68, with an index of wills transferred to Somerset House, from 1640-1858.
• W. P. W. Phillimore, ed., Calendars of Wills and Administrations in the Consistory Court of the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, 1516 to 1652... (1892) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  British Record Society, volume 7. Also includes wills proved in peculiars, then at Lichfield (1529-1652), Birmingham (1675-1790) and Derby (1753-1790).
• Calendars of wills & administrations in the Consistory court of the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, 1516 to 1652 (with peculiar jurisdictions to 1790) (David Blackwell, United States Internet Genealogical Society)
  Images, from the edition of W.P.W. Phillimore (British Record Society, Index Library 7, 1892); in progress
• Lincoln diocese documents, 1450-1544 (Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, University of Michigan)
  Searchable text, from the edition of Andrew Clark (1914). Most of the documents are wills, in English or Latin; others include vows of celibacy and records relating to church estates.
• Transcript of the will of Laurence Lyndley of Leathley, Yorkshire, 1557 (Ronald A. Cawthorn)
• Middlesex: Archdeaconry Court of Middlesex wills, 1609-1810 (London Signatures, London Metropolitan Archives)
  The London Signatures database currently includes a freely searchable index of about 6,500 wills proved in the Archdeaconry Court of Middlesex. The wills themselves can be viewed in JPG format, on a pay-per-view basis. It is planned to add wills from the Consistory Court of London, the Commissary Court of Surrey and the Archdeaconry Court of Surrey, together with other classes of records
• Arthur Hussey, Milton [Kent] Wills (Next Sittingbourne) - I. and Milton Wills (next Sittingbourne) [Kent]- II. (Kent Archaeological Society)
  Text of papers originally published in Archaeologia Cantiana, vol. 44, pp. 79-103 (1932) and vol. 45 (1933), pp. 13-30. Abstracts of 15th- and 16th-century wills
• Norfolk Record Office online catalogue
  Searchable database, in progress. Includes the following probate records:
  • Norwich Consistory Court wills 1370-1858 and administrations 1371-1857 (catalogue reference 'NCC')
  • Peculiar of Great Cressingham wills 1675-1754 ('PGC 4' and 'PGC 5') and administrations 1702-1710 ('PGC 7')
  • Peculiar of Castle Rising indexes of wills 1624-1724 and administrations 1703-1720 ('PRCR')
  • Court of the City of Norwich enrolled wills, 1286-1508 ('NCR')
  • King's Lynn Borough enrolled wills 1276-1539 ('KL/C 12')
• Northamptonshire Wills (Fay McKenzie-Edmonds)
  In progress; transcripts of wills, 16th century and later, from the parish of Sulgrave and district, with indexes for names and places
• [James Raine, ed.] Wills and inventories illustrative of the history, manners, language, statistics, etc., of the northern counties of England, from the eleventh century downwards. Part 1. (Bob Boynton, University of Iowa)
  Surtees Society, vol. 2 (1835). 11th century-1581; mainly from the Durham diocesan registry. PDF file (30 MB).
• [J. W. Clay, ed.] North country wills, being abstracts of wills relating to the counties of York, Nottingham, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland at Somerset House and Lambeth Palace. Volume 1. (Bob Boynton, University of Iowa)
  Surtees Society, vol. 116 (1908). Covers 1383-1558. Transcripts (in Latin for earlier wills). PDF file (21 MB).
• [J. W. Clay, ed.,] North Country Wills, being abstracts of wills relating to the counties of York, Nottingham, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland .... Volume 1. 1383-1558. (1908) (Internet Archive - Text Archive)
  Surtees Society, volume 116. Transcripts; the earlier documents in Latin.
• North country wills, being abstracts of wills relating to the counties of York, Nottingham, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland at Somerset House and Lambeth Palace. Volume 2. (Bob Boynton, University of Iowa)
  Surtees Society, vol. 121 (1912). Covers 1558-1604. PDF file (16 MB).
• Index of Probate Inventories, Oxfordshire 1550-1590: data available as a text file or DBASE III.DBF version (M.Brewerton)
• James Raine, ed., Wills and inventories from the registry of the archdeaconry of Richmond, extending over portions of the counties of York, Westmerland, Cumberland and Lancaster (Bob Boynton, University of Iowa)
  Surtees Society, vol. 26 (1853). Selection from 1442-1579; some earlier items in Latin. PDF file (20 MB).
• Index of Wills Proved in the Rochester Consistory Court: Wills 1440 - 1561 (Kent Archaeological Society)
  Scanned images of the index compiled by Leland L. Duncan, and published in Kent Records, vol. 9 (1924)
• Will of William Russell of Hawsker [parish of Whitby, Yorkshire], 1566 (Charles Russell)
  Image and transcript
• Archdeaconry Court of Canterbury: Sandhurst wills at the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone (Bodiam Mill: Sources in Genealogy and Local History for Sandhurst in Kent and nearby villages)
  List of 243 wills from Sandhurst, Kent, 1449-1712; now available by paid subscription only
• William Shakespeare's will [1616] (Public Record Office)
  Image, in PDF format (659KB). For those who don't want to wait for the large file to download, a transcript is available here
• Swansea [Glamorgan] Wills Index: 1564-1858] (R. James)
• Sir N.H. Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta (1826)
  A classic collection of abstracts of medieval and early modern wills:
  • Index of Testators (Tim Powys-Lybbe)
    On the same site are some notes on the work
  • Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas Testamenta Vetusta, volume 1 (1826) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  • Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas Testamenta Vetusta, volume 2 (1826) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
• Abstracts of probate documents, Hungerford and Wantage area (in progress; Nick Hidden)
• Wiltshire Wills Project (Wiltshire County Council)
  Searchable catalogue of 105,000 wills from the diocese of Salisbury, 1540-1858. Images of the original documents are being added, and are free to view; as of November 2007, images are available for about 25% of the wills.
• Wills Probate and Inventories [relating to Wirksworth, Derbyshire, and neighbourhood, at Lichfield Joint Record Office, 1524-1602] (John Palmer, Wirksworth Parish Records)
  Alphabetical list, supplied by David Kiernan
• [James Raine, ed.] Testamenta Eboracensia; or wills registered at York illustrative of the history, manners, language, statistics, etc., of the province of York, from the year 1300 downwards. Parts 1 and 2. (Bob Boynton, University of Iowa)
  Surtees Society, volumes 4 (1836) and 30 (1855). Selection of wills, 1316-1467. PDF file (50 MB). Part 2 includes an index to both parts.
• [James Raine, ed.] Testamenta Eboracensia. A selection of wills from the Registry at York. Part 2. (1855) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Surtees Society, volume 30. Covers 1429-1467; with an index to parts 1 and 2.
• [James Raine, ed.] Testamenta Eboracensia. A selection of wills from the Registry at York. Part 3. (1865) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Surtees Society, volume 45. Covers wills 1395-1491, and other material 1374-1531.
• Testamenta Eboracensia. A selection of wills from the Registry at York. Volume 4. (1869) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Surtees Society, volume 53. Covers wills 1420-1509, and other material 1308-1556.
• Testamenta Eboracensia: a selection of wills from the registry at York. Vol. 5. (Bob Boynton, University of Iowa)
  Surtees Society vol. 79 (1884). Covers 1509-1531; including some from other jurisdictions. PDF file (22 MB).
• [J. W. Clay, ed.] Testamenta Eboracensia. A selection of wills from the Registry at York. Volume 6. (1902) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Surtees Society, volume 106. Covers 1516-1551.
• Index of wills in the York Registry A.D. 1627 to 1636. Administrations A.D. 1627 to 1652. (1905) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Yorkshire Archaeological Society, volume 35.
• [F. Collins, ed.] Wills in the York Registry from 1636 to 1652. (1888) (Google Book Search [Hints and tips])
  Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Association, volume 4.
• York Medieval Probate Index 1267-1500 (British Origins/Borthwick Institute)
  Index, searchable on a pay-per-view basis, to over 10,000 wills proved in the Prerogative and Exchequer Courts of York, in the period 1267-1500
• York Peculiars Probate Index 1383-1883 (British Origins/Borthwick Institute)
  Index, searchable on a pay-per-view basis, to over 25,000 wills proved in the 54 peculiar courts of the Province of York, in the period 1383-1883