Presented at Who Do You Think You Are LIVE, London, February 2013
by Ian Galbraith, Founder & CEO of Origins.net.
- The importance of probate records:
The richest single source for genealogy, family history, social & local history.
Censuses & parish registers provide the skeleton - probate records provide the flesh.
- What can probate records tell you:
Relatives & friends - the best resource for family relationship
Possessions, and their value - actual and as perceived by their owner
Places - associated with the deceased
Social context & relationships - who the deceased was involved with and how.
- Other probate documents and what they can tell you
- Problems encountered
- Where to find pre-1858 wills
- The value of probate indexes
- The National Wills Index project
Download free PDF of the presentation (3.4MB)
offers access to a wealth of unique and hard to find genealogy records, dating back to the 1200s from Britain and Ireland, including: Marriage and Apprentice records, Poor Law abstracts, Passenger Lists, Griffith's Valuation, Court and Militia records, Electoral Registers, Irish Directories PLUS the National Wills Index
, the principal online resource for pre-1858 English probate material.