Help searching Prerogative & Exchequer Courts of York Probate Index (once logged in)
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You can search on last name, first name, county/country, court and year range.
County The “county” field allows you to select the county – or country - of interest via a “drop-down” list.
Although over 80% of the records relate to Yorkshire, people from all over the British Isles and abroad had property in the Province of York, and had their wills proved in the Prerogative or Exchequer Court of York.
Year range Currently the index only holds records for wills proved in the period May 1731 to Jan 1858. The indexes for the period 1500 to Mar 1731 will be provided later.
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| Viewing images |
For more help viewing images please see our Help on Searching - Viewing Images & Maps page.
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| Abbreviations |
Click here for abbreviations which may appear in the original, manuscript indexes or in the online index.
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| Latin in the index |
For the year 1731-33, there are a substantial number of index entries written in Latin – around 50% or more of these entries. While the structure of these entries is the same as for all the English entries, the words used are different and, most importantly, the spelling of forenames is different.
Click here for more details on Latin index entries.
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| Explanation of index fields |
Note: To help avoid confusion, we use the term “index record” when referring to the present computerised index, and “index entry” when referring to the original, paper-based, indexes.
The Place is usually that where the testator dies, but often more than one place where the person had lived is shown in the original entry, as in the example below. While over 80% of the documents relate to persons who died in Yorkshire, there are testators from all over the British Isles and overseas; more than 10% of the testators are from Nottinghamshire. In the great majority of cases the town and/or parish where the testator was living at the time of death is given.
County This field shows the country, if the Place is not in England or Wales.
Court The abbreviations “P” or “E” in this field indicate that the will was proved in the Prerogative or Exchequer Court, respectively.
Document type Though mostly the original documents are wills, other types of documents may be available, as shown in the table below:
| Document type |
Description |
| Will |
Wills may have attached codicils |
| Admon |
Administration. If a person died without leaving a will, someone (usually a relative) could apply to the probate court for a grant of administration, which would allow them to deal with the estate. |
| Admon 2 |
Second administration |
| Codicil |
A separate codicil to a will, ie a codicil which is not attached to a will. (rare) |
| Curation |
Guardianship over minors under 21 but over 14 for boys or 12 for girls. The guardian was chosen by the minor. |
| Tuition |
Tuition agreement. Relates to guardianship over minors under 14 (boys) or 12 (girls). The guardian was chosen by the court. |
| 2nd probate |
record of a second probate for the estate |
| Renunciation |
A document from one or more of the executors, or prospective administrators, renouncing their executorship or right to administer. (rare) |
There is frequently more than one document available. If you order a hard copy, you will receive copies of all documents which are available. All wills indexed currently in the Prerogative & Exchequer Court of York Probate Index are in English.
Date This is the date when probate was granted, which could be some considerable time after death.
Source reference This reference is mainly of use to the Borthwick Institute, for locating the original documents. “vol.” gives the volume number, and “f.” the folio number (not always present in the electronic index). The letter “r” or “v” after a folio number refers to the recto or verso of the folio.
Index reference The original indexes are held by date (month and year) then alphabetical order (but only by initial letter of the surname). (Example index page.) This is a unique reference to the page containing the original index entries (the part before the slash), and to the sequential position of the entry within the page (the number after the slash). The original index volumes contain entries by alphabetical order (not sorted within letter of the alphabet) and by date. So searching these for, for example, a will left by John Smith sometime between 1854 and 1857 could be very time consuming; there are over 40 relevant index entries, contained in over a dozen volumes. But with the electronic index you can find these entries immediately.
The complete index reference allows you to identify index records which relate to the same probate. So considering the first two entries in the table above, for Robert Cook, we can see that the Index Ref. (2222/4) is the same in both cases, so it is the same Robert Cook and the same probate documents which are referenced. The “/4” shows that the relevant index entry is fourth on the page, making it easy to find the original index entry on the image. The last three entries in the table are also for the same person, who has three places mentioned in the original entry, as you can see here.
Example 1.
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This shows that William Cooke died at Snenton, Nottinghamshire, having previously lived in Nottingham and before that at Cambray (modern Cambrai) in France. The will was proved in November 1854. The last three index records shown in the table above all relate to this person.
Index note present In many original index entries there are marginal notes present, which may be helpful to researchers. If such a note is present it wil be indicated by a “Yes” in this field. The notes are most often in the right hand margin bu can also appear in the left margin. Example 2 shows the kind of information which may be present.
Example 2.
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These two successive entries both contain marginal notes. The first refers to a former grant [of probate] in February 1832 – the present reference is to a grant in January 1855. The second refers to a later administration in September 1907, at London (by this time probate was granted by the civil courts), of goods not administered under the present grant of administration (“A.d.b.n.” - see Abbreviations table).
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| Multiple names in original index entries |
The original index entries sometimes contain names of people other than the testator. These may be of the widow or, in the case of entries referring to curation or tuition agreements, to the testators children. All names appearing in the original indexes have been captured for the present index.
Example 3.
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In this case index records have been created both for Sarah Bancroft, for John Bancroft, and also for Sarah Burton.
Example 4.
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In this case, there are index records for Robert James Greenlees, and also for each of the children, Sam, Matthew, Alice and Elizabeth.
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| Interpretating the original index entries |
As mentioned above, the original index entries are recorded by date, and the date appear only at the start of a block (which may occupy more than one page) of entries for surname beginning with a specific letter of the alphabet. So the probate date does not appear against each entry.
The parish is usually – but far from always – given and can be identified by a preceding abbreviation “P.”. If the will was proved in the Prerogative Court, the abbeviation “Prog.” will appear on the right, otherwise probate was granted in the Exchequer Court.
The right margin contains abbreviations for the types of document and type of probate; abbreviations which may appear are listed in the Abbreviations table. The number which appears is an indication of the value of the estate (which should not be relied upon), eg 300L – “L” = pounds sterling.
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| NameX |
NameX is a proprietary name-matching tool which allows you to find family records for names which have common variations in spelling or which may have been spelled incorrectly on some records.
Click here for more help.
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| Ordering Originals |
You can order a hard copy of the document(s) referred to in any index record simply by clicking of the "Add to cart" button alongside each record. The cost of each hard copy document, including first class or airmail postage, is £10. (NB If there is more than one document referred to you will receive copies of each.)
There is frequently more than one document available. If you order a hard copy, you will receive copies of all documents which are available.
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