Genealogy Chat

The following announcement has been made by HM Courts & Tribunals Service.
“As of Friday the 12th December, the Probate Service will make available our records from 1858 to the present and the records of some soldiers who died on active military service between 1860 and 1982 (predominantly those who died in the First World War) for searching online.


http://blog.eogn.com/2014/11/25/london-probate-search-rooms-closing-december-2014-to-be-replaced-by-new-on-line-index-to-wills-from-1858/

Mary J

Interesting! I wonder how Ancestry feel about that as they feature the Probate Calendar to 1966.

There is a Beta version for on-line searches for Probates etc 1996-2014
https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills

If we can't physically search the books, then the missing years 1967-1995 need to be added to the online data base pretty quickly

No doubt they will run out of money/have IT programming problems and it'll all go wrong. :-(

Thanks for that news Mary J.

I suspect the reason that 1996 onwards is already available is that they were in digital form from the start. I am sure that 1967-1995 are virtually ready to be incorporated.

The real question is whether the changes arising from use of the beta search, have been fully checked.

Thanks Mary J,

I'm looking forward to being able to order on line and download- it's been a pain having to apply by post (I'm still waiting on one ordered nearly 4 weeks ago- and wanted to order another two- but I'll wait now). I suspect a lot more people will order wills once it's all on-line.

The problem with the online database is that no addresses are given. When you are searching for the will of someone with a common name it will be impossible to identify the correct person, especially if you do not know the year of death. I tried for many years to find the death of my 3 x great grandfather and only finally identified the correct death by searching through the calendars at the London Probate Office and finding his probate details which included his address. He died in 1868 in his ninetieth year and was a lot older at death than I had anticipated.

thank you for posting link

interesting will have a proper look later as off back to work soon

Thank you for posting this Mary J.

Chris

Now up and running

https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/Calendar#calendar

Wow! They've gone 'live' ahead of schedule.

A 1968 result is giving when the person died, normal address and the amount of the Estate. It does not give the name of the Administrator/Executor or their occupation.

Never the less, its a great finding tool.