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Wills have been proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) since 1383 and are now preserved in The National Archives, London. This index, created by the Society of Genealogists, covers wills proved in the period 1750 to 1800 (inclusive).

Notes on the index

Each index record has the First name and Last name of the testator, the Place (usually county) where they resided, and the Month and Year when probate was granted.

Where the place of residence was not England, the country may be given (most commonly Scotland or Ireland), or 'Foreign Parts' - which may be any place outside the British Isles.

Please note: The present index, which includes about 208,000 entries, is not complete, with about 15% of the records being missing (largely ones where the surname is unusual).

Where the original printed entry gave an alternative surname (eg. BICKNELL, Thomas, otherwise CAREY) there are index entries under both surnames. Index records do not indicate that there is an alternative entry.

In the case of titled persons and ecclesiastical dignatories (eg. bishops) the person is indexed by the titular Place and Forename, eg. a will for the Earl of Bristol is indexed under BRISTOL, Augustus John; one for the Bishop of Bristol is indexed under BRISTOL, Christopher.

In many entries for seamen, the printed index identifies the ship on which they most recently served. However this information is not included on this online index.

About the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury

By 1750 the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop Canterbury (PCC) was proving Wills and granting Administrations at a rate of about 7,000 a year, and this number had grown to about 12,000 a year by 1800.

It was the supreme church court in the British Isles for the probate of wills, and because of the great prestige of its acts and the greater safety of its records it had attracted the probate of wills of men of substance at least since the Reformation.

The Bank of England acknowledged no probate other than of this court, and the wills of persons who died abroad possessing property in this country were almost invariably proved at Canterbury. Because of this the PCC wills include copies of those of numerous Irish and colonial persons who had a second probate at the PCC and whose wills have not survived in their own countries. Particularly in the period under consideration, thousands of bi-national Hollanders and other Europeans who had invested money in the British funds (again whose wills may not have survived or be easily accessible in their own countries) had their wills proven by the PCC.

The Bank of England did accept wills proved in other courts before 1812, but after that date it demanded PCC wills only.

The PCC was also the 'local court' for those possessing property in more than two dioceses in the Province of Canterbury and thus contains the wills of a great number of people in the south of England and particularly in the Home Counties (excepting Kent - see below), as also for those who had property in both the provinces of Canterbury and York.

In Kent the Archbishop of Canterbury delegated his powers to his commissary general, but this does not mean that no Kent entries are to be found in the PCC - though rare, they do appear.

How this index was made

Originally the only means of reference to the PCC probate records was a series of contemporary manuscript calendars arranged in chronological order and subdivided by the first letter of the surname only.

For searches towards the end of the eighteenth century fifteen or twenty minutes might be needed to examine a year's entries in these calendars for a single surname and a search over several years when the exact date of death was not known could sometimes be a very lengthy task.

There were three or four sets of these calendars, one set having been used in the Literary Department at the Principal Probate Registry and another in the Public Search Room there, and individual volumes having been copied again as they became faint and worn.

One of these sets was borrowed by the Society of Genealogists, and between 1968 and 1973 volunteers were organised to write slips for the half million entries they contained. These slips were then sorted into strict alphabetical order, no attempt being made to sort variants of surnames together or cross-reference them, the wills being kept separate from the administrations. From this slip index a typewritten index was created.

The present index, which contains 208,000 records, was created from the typewritten index.

Accuracy of original calendars and errors in the index

It has long been recognised that the calendars from which this index is compiled are not complete. From the work done on the late seventeenth century calendars it has been calculated that references to about a tenth of the filed original and register copy wills were accidentally omitted. There is no reason to expect that the compilers of the later calendars were any more careful.

However, the immense labour of checking the calendars against the Act Books, the Original Wills and the Register Copy Wills was impossible in this case with the resources available.

In creating the typewritten index great care was taken to discover and correct many of these errors as possible. Thousands of doubtful entries spotted in the sorting and typing were checked against the calendars now in use at The National Archives, which are clearer and probably more accurate than those used by the indexers. However, it is important that users of this index should realise its limitations.

Spelling variations and errors

In creating the typewritten index great care was taken to discover and correct many of these errors as possible. However, it is important that users of this index should realise its limitations.

It is almost impossible to detect errors in the calendars carried from one to another or created in their re-copying over the years.

Some errors may be guessed at as, eg. when an l has been crossed in error to produce a t, thus accounting for the name Donatty, or left uncrossed to produce such names as Palrick. Or when a misplaced dot converts Donoghue to Donogline.

There are undoubtedly errors resulting from the handwriting of the manuscript calendars.

Uprights and adjoining lines can appear identical in the letters i, m, n and u, so that Cumming has eleven identical strokes, relieved only by the dot over the I.

The commonest errors result from the confusion of n and u, of m, in, ui and ni, and particularly of the pairs im, mi, nn, nu and un, due in part to over-looking the dot on the i. Thus such names as Dunsey, De Luna, Druig and Dunns, appear instead of Dimsey, De Lima, Dring and Dinnis.

Capitals I and J being formed in the same way produced names like Juge and Juman instead of Inge and Inman.

The letters c, r and t, which are very similarly written are another cause of confusion (producing names like Jonachan) and z was often copied as r.

The long s used in the calendar as the first of a pair of ss, was often copied as f or l, as in Belse for Besse. The double FF in capitals has been eliminated as far as possible.

The second loop of the letter w, mistaken for o, caused such errors as Dekroer and De Leemo for Dekewer and De Leeuw, and Andrevo for Andrew.

Confusion of g and y led to such oddities as Curlucy for Curling.

In addition, q was sometimes copied as g; h copied as li; and e was copied as o, as in Ponelope.

Where the incorrect name produced by an indexer is also a known surname (eg. Baron for Bacon).

Where a letter has been omitted, eg. converting Davies into Davis or Woods into Wood.

Errors or omissions may also be due to the fading of the parchment or to carelessness, and also generated in the re-keying to create the present index. We hope that these have been reduced to a minimum by the checking that has taken place.