Some interesting news today - the US geneabloggers invited to Ancestry's Blogger Day are reporting that Ancestry are currently scanning the UK post-1858 wills index. This is great news, as even if you don't go ahead and order the full will from the Probate Service (which is a painful process if you are overseas) there is a fair amount of information about the person and the will in the index entry itself, like date of death, address, name of whom probate was granted to, and the value of the assets.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
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5 comments:
I can't wait to see these come online because as you say they are so full of useful information. They almost (but not quite) replace the need for ordering a will and death certificate.
Interesting news indeed. At the last two WDYTYA shows in London the Probate Service were talking about putting the indexes online but didn't appear to have made any progress.
I can personally verify that Ancestry is working on this database and index - I posted a photo on Twitter (this set of 1867 wills in England was going to the trash but now being scanned http://twitpic.com/x89tb)
There are close to 90 such books I believe - Ancestry is scanning them now - no date was given as to when they would be available.
These will be for English and Welsh indexes only, and not include the Calendar of Confirmations and Inventories from Scotland or the Irish equivalents, as records for these probate records are not handled in London.
Excellent news. I am now very keenly waiting for the next news update!
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