I’ve been tidying up my family tree – more the side branches actually – and have been searching the wills and probate section on Ancestry. This resource is very useful for post 1911 events as it gives addresses and often occupations; the amounts left and to whom; and an actual death date, rather than just the quarter which is all I’ve currently got for those not in a direct line – cousins, 2nd cousins, grand uncles etc etc. I say the death date is shown – but sadly not in one I’ve just found. My maternal grandmother, Charlotte COOKE was one of 12 children – 9 girls, 2 boys and 1 unknown. The unknown was one of those instances from the 1911 census where the number of children born; still alive; and died, were recorded. An unknown child had obviously been born and died in between censuses. The birth pattern – every 2 years or so – indicates when this child was born, but there are just too many COOKEs, ad COOKs with infant mortality, for me to make a firm identification. But back to my main point. One of my grandmother’s brothers left Nottingham and according to my mother when I was asking after her aunts and uncles, the family lost contact with him. When the 1911 census became available, which was after my mother had died, I found him in Mexborough, Yorkshire working for The Great Central Railway as a fireman. I was then able to trace his marriage and his subsequent children. But yesterday as I said, I decided to tidy up some records, so I searched and found a probate record for him which read: “COOKE Samuel Owen of 65 Church Street, Swinton, Yorkshire who was last seen alive on 18th January 1964 and whose dead body was found on the 30th January 1964 in the canal off Market Street, Swinton. Administration Wakefield 3rd March to Sarah Ann Cooke widow. £274.” How sad. He would have been 76 years old so possibly just fell in. One of my other current favourite resources, Newspapers online via “Find my Past” doesn’t have digitised images from such a late date, so I might have to call in at a local library one day to see if there was an inquest reported in the local paper. Wills and probate records are available at Notts Archives by the way, but not name searchable. You have to search the fiches alphabetically like we all did when we first started out. Brian Binns