[Bann Valley] Wills

[<boydgray26@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Listers,

 

On more than one List, I have been discussing exactly what is available as
regards wills and I have had lots of replies from various people but there
seemed to be no clear consensus as to just what WAS available and where.
Maybe I was just being stupid.  Until recently, when it revamped its website
and made the Calendars of Wills (brief but useful summaries) available
online, even PRONI was not clear about what had survived the Four Courts
fire.  However, their new site is much more definitive when it states:

Unfortunately the original wills of the Principal Registry up to 1904 and of
the District Registries up to 1899 were lost in 1922 when the Public Record
Office of Ireland in Dublin was destroyed. However, the copies of wills that
were made by the District Registries survived as they had not been
transferred to the Public Record Office in Dublin. These copies of wills
were written into large volumes - those for the District Registries of
Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry are held in the Public Record Office of
Northern Ireland. They are currently being digitised.

 

So, you can see these "copies of wills" at PRONI and you can now see the
Calendars of Wills online at the PRONI website.  Belfast is not that close
for many of us so I decided to look at some films mentioned on the LDS site,
which could have been these "copies of wills" for the Derry Diocese for the
period 1858 to 1899, or they might just have been just the Calendars of
Wills for that period.  The description was not clear, and more to the
point, I was still labouring under the impression that all wills before 1900
were destroyed and not available anywhere.

 

The film has now turned up at my FHC in Derry and I can now happily report
that the full copies of wills made by the District Registries are indeed on
these films. The Derry District covered Donegal, Derry and Tyrone, so you
can order the films from your local FHC for less than three pounds and view
wills made between 1858 and 1900.  This is the LDS webpage:

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?dis
play=titlefilmnotes&columns=*%2C0%2C0&titleno=230037&disp=Londonderry+distri
ct+will+book%2C+18582++

or:

http://tinyurl.com/2kkroe

 

And this is taken from the LDS website:

Note 
 Location 
Film 
 
Wills 1858-1864 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
930300 
 
Wills 1864-1871 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
942216 
 
Wills 1871-1875 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
942217 
 
Wills 1875-1879 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
942218 
 
Wills 1879-1885 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
942219 
 
Wills 1885-1889 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
942220 
 
Wills 1890-1892 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
942221 
 
Wills 1892-1895 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
942222 
 
Wills 1896-1899 
 FHL BRITISH Film 
942223 
 

 

 

For those with access, Derry Probate Office in Bishop Street also has copies
of wills from 1900 to date.

 

Happy sleuthing,

 

Boyd

   


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