Genealogy Chat

Sorry should have read £80,000. Have changed the header. Linda x

My cousin from Surrey looked up some names for me in the Wills index and I was shocked she actually found some of my GGparents who actually had wills even though they weren't rich or famous. When I rake in some more $$$ I will definetly fire off a money order or two get my hands on them. Considering I live in Canada, I'll spend the $100, better than $2000 in airfare lol lol. Speaking of the Will Indexes, has anyone in the past offered to do lookups of these? Just curious. Gord

are you saying £80 or more

Thank goodness it's not just me. I have failed to find anything useful so many times on the A2A site! I finally got a few good hits in the last few weeks and I am now singing its praises. Stick with it, keep trying various name/place variations and eventually you'll get lucky. However, I'm not having much luck yet on wills (probably as I'm searching the wrong way) but I'm about to go visit the probate ofice in London to ask for help. I know some of my ancestors had land and/or money so they must have left wills! I'll post a message if I get any useful advice. Louise

I agree, A2A is brill! And I am a computer idiot so in the end I just gritted my teeth, put in the area (North West) and then tried every variation of spelling I could think of for my family name - Holden - there are twenty seven ways of spelling it on A2A. Then I sorted the 600 or so hits by date and just plugged my way through every entry, took me weeks, - oh, boy, did I find some stuff! Including a scrap-book (you may remember my hysterical excitement when I found that, it had details of a marriage I had searched for for FIVE YEARS). Various Wills. Many many land transactions. Umpteen settlemnt/removal/bastardy orders. A court case concerning one field which lasted over seventy years and provided me with nine generations of family!!! I have recently found a newspaper cutting reporting an accident of a possible relly who lives at an address which is significant to my family - didnt know about this man - waiting on hot needles for Lancs RO to email me back. A2A is a difficult site to search, I grant you that but it never ever fails to throw up something new for my family. Try all spellings of name, then try all spellings of area. Bet you find something! Marjorie PS I cannot fathom the NA site at all.

Scottish wills cost £20! Rosalyn

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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??

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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?

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