General Chat

hiya all thanks for your replies x

I have one for a 3xgreat grandfather. No money as such but he left his clothes and tools to his son in law. Strange as he had 4 sons and a daughter. Maybe she was his favourite or the sons had enough clothes! Jane

When Diana Tills made her will in 1779, she named every brother and sister (in order) and every neice and nephew. Thank you, Diana. When she died in 1790, every beneficiary had to sign for receipt of their share. As you may imagine, several had died, so their shares were split between their children, widows had remarried, people had moved. Those receipts survive, complete with occupation and address. It's a mini census for that branch of my family. Thank you, thank you, executors. Brenda

Even poor folks left wills The first Will I have is from 1753 - its beautiful but as Gwynneth says very hard to read or translate in places. The easiest to read is in 1809 from my 5 x grt grandmother lists her farm, livestock d furniture. Names her children, their spouses and grandchildren. She had 17 children in total . She also mentions a book debt . In many cases she leant her children money and in her will she wanted her executors to have the debt paid so it could all be shared out equally . Very odd today lol!! Much happiness Debi

I have a transcription of my Great Grandfather's will. He died in 1913. In it he leaves any money after his property has been sold to be divided between his 8 children. He then adds that one son, who emigrated to Canada and borrowed money twice, first £14 then after a visit home, he borrowed again to pay for his and his wife and 2 childrens' passage to canada a further £23. (Couldn't get to Canada for that now!), he paid back £2 so the balance of £35 was still owing and this was to be deducted from his share of the will. He also specified that, as it was his wife's wish, if his wife pre-deceased him and his elder daughter moved in to look after him then she should have all his furniture.

Most of my relies were aglabs and v. poor! My mum recently have me an old box, which she had taken for safekeeping from my grannie's bungalow when my grannie went into an old people's home. Shortly afterwards my dad was v. ill and then both my grannie and my dad died within a few months of eachother. My mum had forgotten all about it until she was looking for other family stuff to help my research. In the box is a Will from a great-great uncle of mine whose existence I had only recently discovered! He started off as a farm labourer, but when he died 1937 he left property including a lot of cottages to his surviving siblings, and my grannie who was his dead sister's daughter. All the stuff had to be sold and then the war came and no-one wanted to buy property. It took ages to sort out and in the meantime my poor grannie, whose eldest son had died of peritonitis during the war, was threatened with eviction for non-payment of rent. I haven't totalled it up yet, but I think she got getting on for £900 altogether. The Will is written in legalese and has no punctuation apart from commas, from the beginning to the end. nell

You can learn such alot about the type of people they were, sometimes. My step grandmother left nothing to chance and itemised ALL her belongings, allocating them to named children and then included 'George Herbert *****, my son One armchair & two pictures his brother and sister likes him to have together with an odd piece or two of furniture & my forgiveness for the unpleasantness he caused in 1932'. I wonder what when on there then!!

i have some but they r more recent wat i do have which i find fascinating is some land deeds from the 1800s

Hi, I have quite a few wills (1542 - 1940) the older they are the harder they are to read. I have been able to gather excellent information from them as far as names of heirs go and have found out who daughters married etc. The older ones itemise everything the person owned (household and livestock) and have several pages. I still have a lot of gaps in them where I just cannot read what was written. I found many of them through wills indexes in Birmingham Library and then emailed the County record office for copies of the older ones. They cost quite a bit but are a joy to read. Gwynne

I've got a copy of a statement of how monies from an estate were apportioned, not particularly old - 1944 - where relatives of mine were left a total of £718.17.6d. It's just the way it's set out that fascinates me. The three daughters of my great grandfather (then deceased) were left 1/3rd of one seventh share, then other relatives were left a whole 7th share and the next generation one 49th share. I haven't worked out how the testator is related to the family yet -but I am working on it! I tried the web site mentioned and aparently it's worth was over £20,000 in 2002. Magsx

brian got it sure my eyes are playing tricks it says £37ooo and odd

thanks guys brian i must be doing something wrong as it wont come up on google

That web-site is - http://www.eh.net/hmit/ppowerbp/

That was a lot of money at the time. There's a website that will give you the equivalent value today. Can't recall the address off-hand but you could search for "value of the £". len

has anyone got a rellies will my gggrandma who died in derby left £600 in 1892( there was nowt for me) lol