Where and when?   The PRO site mentioned by Gloria has Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills up to 1858. Most of these will be proved at this court because the testator had property in more than one county. They can be downloaded for GBP3.50  See http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/wills.asp   Other wills were proved at local courts.In the case of Cambs there were two courts at least and indexes to these wills are held at the Cambridgeshire Record Office, from whom you can also get copies of the wills.   After 11 January 1858 Wills and Administrations (Admons) were proved at the Principal Probate Registry in London or at the District Probate Registries. The indexes for these are available in annual volumes. These Probate Indexes are available for inspection at First Avenue House, 47-49 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6NP. The Indexes include a brief account of the main details, names, address, date and place of death, occupation of deceased, executors and total amount of the effects. This is still not as good as seeing a copy of the Will. Until 1870 the Wills and Administrations were indexed separately and this should be born in mind when searching the indexes.If there was not a Will there could be an Administration which is a record of the total amount of the estate complete with relative dates of the death and administration with the names of the administrators. York, like many other cities has a District Probate Registry. Copies of Wills for England and Wales can be ordered, but the Indexes cannot be inspected here. Copies of Wills for nearly everyone can be ordered at the cost of £5.00 from the York Probate Sub-Registry in Dean's Court, York. The few exceptions are Royal ones. The copies are sent to you by post. They vary considerably in length and the later ones are typed. It is important to note that it could take time for a Will to be proved.   There may be copies of these indexes in Libraries in Australia, but someone else will probably advise you on this when Australia wakes up to a new day in a few hours time!!   Hope this helps   John --- On Fri, 12/6/09, Gloria <smith-thompson@bigpond.com> wrote: From: Gloria <smith-thompson@bigpond.com> Subject: Re: [ENG-CAMS] Re Wills To: eng-cambridgeshire@rootsweb.com Date: Friday, 12 June, 2009, 12:08 PM www.pro-online.pro.gov.uk/ I have not tried it, but believe it is a free site for searching, but will cost a few dollars to view the will. Gloria, also in Oz. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fay Cooke" <faysy@bigpond.com> To: <eng-cambridgeshire@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, June 12, 2009 7:05 PM Subject: [ENG-CAMS] Re Wills > Hi > > Can anyone tell me where to look or how to begin looking for old Wills > please > > Thanks > Fay in Oz > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ENG-CAMBRIDGESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ENG-CAMBRIDGESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message