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 <http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?di splay=titlefilmnotes&columns=*%2C0%2C0&titleno=230037&disp=Londonderry+distr ict+will+book%2C+18582> &columns=*%2C0%2C0&titleno=230037&disp=Londonderry+district+will+book%2C+185 82++ 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