Genealogy Chat

My g.g grandfather left £80,000 in 1869. What happened to it? Just how much would that be in todays values? ( actually someone told me a site to look it up on ...so I shall) The will gave me so much information and addresses of other family members, lots to work on now! Well worth the five pounds to get a copy. Linda x

Hi Linda i'm really pleased for you, i have just found a will and am looking forward to ordering and recieving it. They are a wealth of info happy hunting sandra

Ooooooo Linda I'm jealous! lol 80 grand eh? Bet that was quite a bit in those days. Have you got an ancestor who was a notorious gambler? lol. Let us know how much it would be worth in today's money - I want to borrow a tenner! lol Jeanette x

wow ! Can I ask how you find a will? I think My rellies would have been too poor to have anything to pass on though.

It is surprising how many scraps of information have been kept. Even a poor man would have something to leave. There are wills just saying who should have which items of his household furniture and which daughter gets his best quilt. Try googling A2A, it can show you what documents have been kept.

thanks........I'll go and give it a try!

I know I have reached the stage where I have permanent senior moments, but can someone explain how to use the A2A site, I have been there several times and it is so confusing and I always end up getting zilch hits. How do you find whether there is a will or other documents around for your ancestor on that page? Or does it just give you those endless lists of batches and boxes and file numbers where you should look at NA?

I was thinking the same thing !! I have been fidling around over there & I decided I needed a degree to work it out.

I can never work it out either. Did someone say that it was mainly wills for the south of England - or was that another site? Oh, these senior moments! lol Jeanette x

Hi havent even found that Jean. I know we can check National Archives Wills on line but I assumed this site would give more info as so many people mention it! Cant find a thing! Karen, if you go to the National Archives Site you an look up wills up to 1858 and actually download them from the site for £3.50. Another one that seems to need a Masters Degree in either IT or brain surgery is the historical directories on line. You could spend a lifetime trying to find someone on there.

karen if you think your rellie left a will then try searching at york district probate registry searches and copies department , if you want the addy please email me, you will need to give them the full name last known address if you have it and their date of death they will then search for you the fee is £5 if they dont find one then i dont think they refund the £5 heather

If you go in to the crown court they will have a probate office they have wills from 1850 to 1966

is york district probate registry searches and copies department , online?? I don't know if any rellies left wills at all. I have been searching the 2 sites above with no luck. I haven't got back to the 1600's or 1700's so I don't know if they are related or not. When I look up Walford I get the town named Walford. When I look up Martin I get churches.....LOL Would unmarried daughters be likely to have money. I have a couple who died fairly old I think.

No Karen, York isnt online only wills up to 1858 are online at National Archives, after that its York or go down to London to search yourself. I think you can look through indices locally. Still dont know why A2A is such a popular site then??

Documents Online will mainly include southern wills. Much better family historians than I am blench at trying to explain wills, but basically: 1. Before 1858, wills were proved in church courts. 2. The most important court was the PCC (Canterbury). This is on Documents Online 3. If you lived in the north, unless you were very important, the highest court was the PCY (York). Wills for this are held at the Borthwick Institute, York 4. There were innumerable smaller courts, dealing with smaller areas and wills of smaller value. These are where most of our ancestors' wills will be proved. These wills will be in county records office, though some indexes are coming online. Wiltshire has a project consolidating (I think) over a dozen small courts, which will be brilliant when it is complete. 5. Even if an ancestor did not leave a will, their estate might have to be administered by someone and records of this may survive (usually in a separate series!) Happy hunting

A2A is not too difficult to use. I have found some stuff on there. However it depends on several things 1. Has the archive which might hold stuff about your rellies added all their files? (not much you can do about this!) 2. Have you put a suitable search question into the box? (there's a help thingy) 3. Did your rellie actually do/leave anything which might be recorded on stuff deposited in an archive? (most of mine didn't) Once you have decided on the search criteria you could narrow it down by choosing the archive(s) you think will be the most relevant to your search. After the search has been performed you get a list with blue links at the end of each line. Click on those to see what the archive have submitted to the catalogue. If it would be of interest to you then get in touch with the archive itself. You do NOT see the full document on A2A. A search tip: try to be fairly specific. Its no good putting in a place name (too broad) but an address has worked for me. Also when putting in a person's name it is best to put the surname first. Finally, although A2A might come up with some wills BEFORE 1858, the place to look after this (as said in other replies) is the probate calendars. Main office in York, copies held in archives and courts. Hope this helps a bit.

Heather A2A is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, but only if your man is there. I was interested in a seedsman in the late 1700s. Malcolm NEAR1 William threw up correspondence with Sir Joseph Bankes and various quartersession records. Malcolm AND nursery* gave me his lease and the fact that he supplied seeds to Petworth House. Lots of different sources in three different repositories which I otherwise would not have found in a month of Sundays. I love it!

Must be me then Brenda. I shall have to take my pills and have a look again later.

Well if I have worked this out right it would be worth today £74,861,157,00! Now why didn't it comedown my line?? Linda x Ps have waited about three weeks for the copy to come.

Scottish wills cost £20! Rosalyn