Recording Details in Probate Records (National Institute)

Recording Probate
The smart family historian doesn’t only look for wills, but for all probate documents, and this includes guardianships, administrations and inventories as well as legal papers recording any contention to a will. The main problems reading probate documents are:


 * Length—you may need to make an abstract.


 * Legal gobbledygook which you can paraphrase as, for example, ‘usual trustee clauses.’


 * Handwriting which may be a standard legal style but nonetheless hard to get used to, or if an original will be in older styles of handwriting.


 * Latin. Before 1733 in England, wills can occur totally in Latin. Later ones may contain Latin phrases. Help can be obtained from guidebooks such as Eve McLaughlin’sSimple Latin for Family Historians (1988).

A will should include a preamble giving the name of the testator and his place of residence, the date he made the will, and bequeathal of the soul and body. Then come any charitable bequests, and the rest of the text specifying legacies to family and friends. There may be addenda called codicils. At the bottom or on the back will be the Probate Act, added when the will was proved at court. It is important that you look for and accurately record the key ingredients and the simplest way to do this is to use a good Will Abstract Form. This will remind you to look for every item; if one is not found then mark the space on the transcript with a dash (-) so that you know that it wasn’t there, not that you didn’t look!

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