Tameside Family History

Under the Wills Act of 1837, for a will to be legal it had to be written down and signed by two independent witnesses who were not to be beneficiaries.

Before this the earliest wills date back to 1383 in London. These were in the main death bed expressions and could be either written or Non Cupative (nunc.) - oral wills

If there was no Will this third went to charity.

There are some unusual examples of written wills. One was simply written on a stable door and another one consisted of three words only, “Everything to Wife”.

Before 1383 Wills and Laws of Succession followed Manorial Custom & Practice, some examples of which are:

Manorial Customs varied considerably as can be seen from the 1422 Custom Roll and Rental of John de Assheton, when Henry 6th came to the throne. And, the 1360 Extent of Tintwistle and Longdendale when the Black Prince became Lord of the Manor.

The Statute of Wills of 1540 allowed males from the age of 14 and females from 12 years to make wills. This was raised to 21 by the 1837 Act. Excluded were lunatics, idiots, prisoners, traitors and heretics.

Wills of unmarried women and widows were common, but until the Married Woman’s Property Act of 1882 married women were not allowed to make wills. Before this they could not by law own property, which together with their possessions were treated as those of their husband’s.

Non Cupative Wills became illegal in 1837 except for members of the armed forces who died in action.

Even if your relative never left a will of his own – he could be mentioned as a beneficiary in that of a relative or near neighbour. (Cheshire Wills Beneficiaries Index - available from the Family History Society of Cheshire. click here for more details)

Wills from 1858

Wills came under Civil Law on 12th January 1858 and had to be proved by District Probate Registries. Click the following links for a couple of guides with excellent information at the National Archives website and the Court Service website.

Locally Wills within the last 50 years are still held at the District Probate Registry on Quay Street in Manchester and are then transferred to the Principal Probate Registry at London. An index of these is held at Greater Manchester Record Office. See the GMCRO Website. There is also a microfiche copy of the National Wills index at Manchester Central Library 1858-1943. These indexes often reveal significant information particularly before 1892. Up until 1871 there are separate indexes for Wills and Administrations so you would need to check for both. If Wills and Grants of Probate are ordered at the same time they cost £5, so it is worth asking for copies of both at the same time, otherwise they cost £5 each.. After these dates it is possible to pay for a local search at Manchester District Probate Registry. There are plans to digitise the wills calendars.

Original wills during the Commonwealth Period are held at The National Archives, but indexing is poor.

It also became in law in 1926 for solicitors to place notices in local newspapers and the London Gazette before going to probate. See Gazettes on-line. Solicitors have often deposited their archives at County Records Office. Local Law Societes can often help to track down when various legal practices existed, but the National Law Society charges £25.00. If you are lucky enough to find your ancestor's documents in solicitors' deposits you could discover a minor treasure trove of family documents.

Title Deeds also require proof of death and the relevant parts of a person's Will.

The Court Service Postal Copies Department at York will carry out a search for 4 years after a person’s death cost £5 irrespective of the number of sheets to the will. You must know the date of death.

The Postal Searches and Copies Department
The Probate Registry
1st Floor
Castle Chambers
Clifford Street
York YO1 9RG
Tel: 44 (0) 1903 666 777

Wills before 1858

Wills were proven through Ecclesiastical Courts; there were over 250 of these. The records for most of these are kept in local records offices. Most have been indexed and many of the indexes have been published You will need to consult the booklet by Jeremy Gibson, called Probate Jurisdictions: Where to Look for Wills. This is arranged by county, and then by church court within that.

It roughly works out like this. Property in one Diocese – Will proved in the Diocesan Court. Property in more than one Diocese – Will proved in the Bishopric’s Consistory Court. Property in more than on Bishopric – Will proved by either the Prerogative Courts of York or Canterbury – with Canterbury taking prerogative over York.

The PCY covered Cheshire, Cumberland, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire. These Wills are held at the Borthwick institute at York and are in the process of being digitized.

The PCC covered the South of England and Wales and these wills are searchable and available to download at the National Archives website - £3.50

Until 1545 When the Bishopric of Chester was created our area fell under the jurisdiction of The Consistory Court at Litchfield (Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Shropshire) in 1545 (Cheshire, Flintshire, Denbigh and Lancashire transferred to Chester).

Also until 1545 the Archdeaconry of Chester was within the Archdeaconry of Litchfield, when it transferred to become the Diocese of Chester.

For more information about Wills before 1858 read the National Archives Research Guide.

The following indexes are searchable on a pay per view basis at the British Origins website

Bank of England Will Extracts Index 1717-1845 over 61,000 names The index contains extracts of wills of people who died with monies in public funds, as well as abstracts of orders made for stockholders who went bankrupt or were declared lunatic. Hard copies can be ordered online.

Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills Index 1750-1800 over 208,000 names Wills have been proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury since 1383 and are now preserved in The National Archives, London. Via this index you can order copies of the wills from the Society of Genealogists.

Archdeaconry Court of London Wills Index 1700-1807 over 5,000 names The Archdeaconry Court of London was one of the London church courts that dealt with testamentary matters. The index of over 5,000 records, mainly from the first half of the 18th century, also contains numerous records of mariners.

York Medieval Probate Index 1267-1500 over 10,000 wills This index covers over 10,000 wills proved in the Prerogative & Exchequer Courts of York in the period 1267 to 1500. Wills are one of the most important sources for the family historian, and the originals of all the wills indexed here are held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives. Copies of these wills can be ordered online, via the index.

York Peculiars Probate Index 1383-1883 over 25,000 wills This index covers over 25,000 wills proved in the fifty four peculiar courts of the Province of York in the five-hundred year period from 1383 to 1883. The originals of all the wills indexed here are again held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives and copies of these wills can be ordered online, via the indexes.

Death Duty Registers

From 1796 everyone with disposable property worth more than £5 had to pay Death Duties (see the National Archives research guide – ‘Death Duty Registers from 1796) – This was increased to £20 in 1858.

Death Duty Registers are now available to search via The Find my Past website on a pay-per-view basis.

Local Wills pre 1858

For Wills pre 1858 Tameside Local Studies Library has indexes (published by the Lancashire and Cheshire Record Society) of all the wills proved at Chester up until 1837 and held at Chester Record Office. However, since the Chester and Lancashire Record Offices were split all the wills for the Lancashire side of Tameside are now held at Preston.

Cheshire wills are now searchable online and copies can be ordered from:

Lancashire Wills on-line - Fully Searchable index of Lancashire wills from the mid 15th Century to 1858. This mainly re-directs people to the relevant LDS Film to hire, but you can use the information as a guide to ordering from Lancashire Record Office.

Inventories

Between 1530 and 1750 some courts required an inventory of the deceased's movable goods to be filed with the Grant of Probate. Two or three assessors were appointed and these could often be friends of the deceased or locally appointed officials. These inventores can be very revealing in trying to work out your ancestor's social status, the tools of his trade and living standards etc. They also listed debts owing at the time to the deceased and these were added to the value of his estate and often give a whole list of names of neighbours, friends and business people your ancestor came into contact with during his day-to-day life.. Locally not many inventories seem to exist after about 1720

Codicil

This is an addition to a Will and contains special clauses or last minute bequests. Again as with a Will it needs to make it clear which Will it refers to and must also be signed by two non-beneficiary witnesses. One example was the appointment of an additional executor to a Will, where the testator possibly felt his two original executors might need additonal imput to make sure they carried out his instructions effectively.