thank you, Carol, I had hopes that someone may have compiled a collection, perhaps in several books keeping 1/4 of the nation in each one or, if that were too much, one for each county/shire, it would make searching for the wills and probates so much easier. and what about the small window between the two? what of the wills filed in 1859 and 1860? in my case, I can fairly well expect to find wills for nearly every direct line ancestor and I've found my outlaying relatives filed wills and probates at least 20% of the time. it could be much higher as I have a largish tree and I haven't verified wills or probates one way or the other for all of the people. my early 1600's Suffolk ancestors (who eventually removed to Colchester) were grocers, gentlemen, freeholders and Quakers. I have found, so far, the wills or probates of my 3x great grandfather, my 4x great grandfather, and my 7x great grandfather, all Cross's, but am still on the hunt for my 4x, 5x and 8x great grandfather Cross's and all of my other great grandfathers-and the occasional great grandmothers, they are less likely to have wills, though. I find it perplexing since they often outlived their husbands and were left with dowers or pensions. yesterday I found 6 wills for some people I have middle names for-the William's, John's, Elizabeth's, Ann's and Mary's will of course be difficult to sort out if I don't know either when they died or where. but I am confident that more wills are out there, I just either have to find the data on the individual, or find which ecclesiastical court they were filed in (or both). it's much easier if they were filed in the PCC, the records in the smaller courts are still being elusive...but someone indexing all the courts for prior to 1850 would make up for the decades that I've been searching for my family. Cornelia On Sun 06/26/11 11:14 PM , "Caroline Bradford" [email protected] sent: Hi Cornelia Prior to 1858, the proving of wills was a matter for ecclesiastical (church) courts, of which there were a great many. After that date, the state took over and the system became a national, rather than a local one. The ERO leaflet at http://tinyurl.com/3tt7w9k [1] may be helpful to you. Don't forget, though, that the likelihood of your ancestors having made wills decreases as you go back in time. Best wishes Caroline > > > Ancestry has a probate calender for 1861-1941 and I've spent some > time playing in it today and finding many wills and probates that I > failed to find either at SEAX during previous visits or A2A during > previous and current visits. a lovely tool, though I haven't > succeeded in finding all of my cousins so am not sure I've found all > of the wills and probates. > > my question, do earlier calenders exist, and if so, are any > online > and where do I find them. I need them into the 1500's. > > thank you, > > Cornelia > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Any problems, please contact the List Admin: Essex-UK- > [email protected] [2] > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ESSEX-UK- > [email protected] [3] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in > the subject and the body of the message Links: ------ [1] http://tinyurl.com/3tt7w9k [2] mailto:[email protected] [3] mailto:[email protected]