Calendar of wills & administration

pinkypinky

According to Claire Santry's blog, the 1858-1920 will and administration indexes are online at the National Archives site.

http://www.willcalendars.nationalarchives.ie/search/cwa/home.jsp

I've been having a play around with it...have found a few people but disappointingly many clicks have yielded a broken link to a pdf. There is a mechanism to report errors in transcription but none to report problems like this.
That's my very preliminary review. I'm going to be on this all night though so not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

L1011

Second record I went to view was a broken link too.

County field has non-county info in it if someone actually died abroad with Irish beneficiaries it seems, so should be careful not to rely on it.

My father's family, where I could do with some info, have an issue with wills to this very day it seems - all recent deaths have been intestate - but there seems to be a fair bit for my mother's side with their luckily obscure surnames.

L1011

Huge bulk of the failed links seem to be to the same file - 5014879_226.pdf - and have no county in. Not all of them are though so there's multiple odd things going on.

tanoralover

If you are searching for a deceased person and want to view the Executors/Beneficiaries names on the result page you can put an asterisk in one of the "Name of Executor/Beneficiary" boxes.

pinkypinky

Further comment: any entry without a county listed seems to be a broken link. Also, even though it's hanging off the new genealogy section of the NAI website, there's no link to it there. I had to go to the NAI homepage to find it, and then 2 more clicks.

shanew

I've found the index very useful, not that many in my lines were that well off, so not many wills to find - but have located some very useful details, and more info on some side branches that could help out.

Also found it useful for searching for dates of death where I have very common surnames (Doyle, Byrne & Sheridan), as the address and beneficiary can help confirm connections.

p.s. more of images seem to be available this morning... maybe still being uploaded ?

p.p.s. counties of 'Belfast' and 'Drogheda' showing up, and also both Derry & Londonderry

pinkypinky

I just submitted a transcription error...very easy to do it wrong.

When you click the submit error box, you have to then click on the word that's misspelled and it comes up as a box you can type into to correct, then you click submit again. I went through this once without changing anything because I didn't read the instructions properly!

montgo

Hi,

Are the original wills and administration letters available to view at the NAI?

The records mention £ effects but why no mention of home or farm?

Jellybaby1

Thank you for posting this Pinky. I found two wills of interest on my maternal side, my ggf and a gg-uncle. Delighted with this and will continue to search for others. I didn't think any of the family had any money but I expect £59 and £135 were decent amounts to their widows around the turn of the 20th century.

pinkypinky

montgo wrote: »

Hi,

Are the original wills and administration letters available to view at the NAI?

The records mention £ effects but why no mention of home or farm?

If they survived the fire in the Four Courts, yes. What you need to do is check the testamentary card index once you locate your person in the indexes. That tells you if it survives in some format.

I presume it's just because it's a summary...the calendars never show any more detail than a sum, which (I presume) may include property valued.

shanew

I think if a Will was proved somewhere other than the principle registry, i.e. Dublin, then there's a chance it has survived.

In most case property was not owned so could not left in a will (leases on property often covered several lives).

montgo

Many thanks, pinkypinky & shanew for yr replies.

Many of the wills that I am interested in are in the period of 1900 to 1921. Mostly, the land was held "in fee" by the occupiers by then but maybe the property was transferred to the children directly?

shanew

montgo wrote: »

...
Many of the wills that I am interested in are in the period of 1900 to 1921. Mostly, the land was held "in fee" by the occupiers by then but maybe the property was transferred to the children directly?

not sure when it started, but certainly during the mid/late 20th Century the family home automatically passed to the spouse without tax etc and was not included in the Will.

If there was inheritance tax involved I would have thought the value of a house, and any land would be included in the amount.

montgo

shanew wrote: »

not sure when it started, but certainly during the mid/late 20th Century the family home automatically passed to the spouse without tax etc and was not included in the Will.

If there was inheritance tax involved I would have thought the value of a house, and any land would be included in the amount.

Hi Shane,

In 1903, a father, widower, left in his will money to his son-in law according to the Calendar of Wills. However all his 5 sons were still alive and one of them took over the family farm.

So I assume that he already had made provision for at least one of his sons before his death. Just wondering how the system worked.

Many thanks

shanew

more of the missing images have been added - including some as hand-written cards

pinkypinky

Oooh - those are the testamentary index cards.

RGM

Couldn't find any of my ancestors? Not even two from Donegal I found in the PRONI records.

Jellybaby1

I have now found some more interesting snippets this time on my in-laws side even though I'm not researching that tree as yet but good to have it for the future anyway. I searched a Mc name from my own side and found zilch but found over a hundred of them when I changed the 'Mc' to M+apostrophe. This has happened to me before. Some records enter Mc or Mac as M'. Might be helpful to others.

RGM

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

I have now found some more interesting snippets this time on my in-laws side even though I'm not researching that tree as yet but good to have it for the future anyway. I searched a Mc name from my own side and found zilch but found over a hundred of them when I changed the 'Mc' to M+apostrophe. This has happened to me before. Some records enter Mc or Mac as M'. Might be helpful to others.

Completely slipped my mind. That accounts for the two I found from PRONI.

Still none from the rest of my family though, which seems odd?

Jellybaby1

Sometimes when I'm searching for my Mc ancestors I drop the Mc/Mac/M' altogether and I get some possibilities.

RGM

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Sometimes when I'm searching for my Mc ancestors I drop the Mc/Mac/M' altogether and I get some possibilities.

Most of the rest aren't Mcs though.

Jellybaby1

Sorry, I misunderstood you. Where's Poirot when you need him, eh?

Hermy

Just a quick thank you for this thread pinkypinky. It has really helped me with a relative I had been struggling with for sometime. I now have death records for him and possibly his wife and also the 1901 census return for his children which I hadn't previously found because of a transcription error!

pinkypinky

I'm catching up on John Grenham's column from the weekend and inevitably it's about the new release. He mentions that 1919 and 1920 pdfs are inexplicably missing.

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/irish-roots-where-there-s-no-will-there-s-a-way-1.1391813

montgo

pinkypinky wrote: »

If they survived the fire in the Four Courts, yes. What you need to do is check the testamentary card index once you locate your person in the indexes. That tells you if it survives in some format.

pinkypinky,

If the wills survived, would they be available for viewing at the National Archives whenever I can travel to Dublin to view them or would I have to order them in advance? thanks again.

eqwjewoiujqorj

The actual wills are stored in the Four Courts. You order them and they arrive the next day for viewing or you get copies if that's what you've ordered. So best to phone the NA in advance.

montgo

eqwjewoiujqorj wrote: »

The actual wills are stored in the Four Courts. You order them and they arrive the next day for viewing or you get copies if that's what you've ordered. So best to phone the NA in advance.

Many thanks for those details. One other thing, is there a limit to the number that you can order for viewing? At the moment I have 8 that I am interested in but there might be more..

eqwjewoiujqorj

I wouldn't see a problem with 8 or 10 or 12.

A lot of stuff in stored in the Four Courts such as the wills, register of electors ect so they bring up a load of stuff up from the Four Courts every morning, that people have ordered.

So I don't think a few wills will bother them.

montgo

Thanks, as I will have only 1 day available, I want to do as much research as possible.

pinkypinky

+1 on the ordering in advance, but I actually think you can get them later the same day if you order in the morning.

Enda63

Montgo,

Dublin wills from 1904 have survived as have most of the country ones from the same time.
Wills from the Four Courts storage area must be ordered at least 24 hours in advance and there is a limit of 5 orders from there per person per day.

Wills from 1975 onwards are now stored in Bishop St

owenc

Very good. Now if they could bring out the pre-1800 wills that would be brilliant.

montgo

Thanks Enda for additional information.

I will have to order some to be posted on me. At €15 for a copy of the Will, I will only be ordering the more important ones.

ifconfig

owenc wrote: »

Very good. Now if they could bring out the pre-1800 wills that would be brilliant.

If I am not mistaken the vast majority of pre-1800 will records that were in Dublin General records office were destroyed in 1922 ??
All that survives are indexes with some abstracts (in rare cases).
I think I read as such on the PRONI website which said that there may be possibility that they are in some solicitor archives or family archives (mostly wealthy families).

Am I correct or is this a glib assessment ?
In my own case I have found a highly relevant 1760 will record in an index but I don't believe the will original exists or that there might be a transcript anywhere.

RGM

How common or uncommon was it for families in Ireland to register wills in the late 1800s to early 1900s? I've only found records from one family and I would have thought there would be more.

owenc

Well if your family is just an average farming family you wont find many. My family only has two wills.

pinkypinky

RGM wrote: »

How common or uncommon was it for families in Ireland to register wills in the late 1800s to early 1900s? I've only found records from one family and I would have thought there would be more.

Extremely uncommon. A genealogist I know estimated it at only 5% of the population up until the mid 20th century.

And yes, very little pre-1858 survived. There's about 10000 wills in the registry of deeds, which have been published in a 3 volume book by the Irish Manuscript Commission.