Surrey Will Abstracts on British Origins

[KiteRunner]

I was reading Thursday's newspaper on the tram coming home from the Notts meet, and it mentioned the Surrey Will Extracts database that has gone live on British Origins

See this link for info about it:
OriginsNetwork - Resources - Collections

Has anybody had a look at it yet? Is it any good? I think I'll be taking out a 72-hour subscription to have a look, but I'd better wait until the kids are back at school after the bank holiday.

[SuffolkSue]

Just been having a look, what names are you looking for?

[KiteRunner]

Sue, I think I'll be having a lengthy browse through because I've got quite a lot of Surrey ancestors, but thanks for asking.

[Elizabeth Herts]

KiteRunner - I already had this link:

Names Mentioned

Is the British Origins one any more comprehensive?

[Roger in Sussex]

Kite Runner,
I have a copy of the Surrey Record Society's volume XXVIII
Kingston upon Thames Register of Apprentices 1563-1713
Would be pleased to check details if anyone has relatives for that place and period and sends me a PM.

[KiteRunner]

Elizabeth, I think that one you have the link to is much smaller than the set on British Origins - it says the one on British Origins includes over 28,000 abstracts.

[KiteRunner]

Oh well, as I had a clear run at the computer I thought I'd get my 72 hr sub now and start looking - not found any of mine yet, but the search is quite annoying if you're looking for a common name because you can search on either name and date (optional) or keyword - not both. In other words, you can't put in a surname plus place name and see what comes up - you have to look at each match for the name to see if it looks like what you're after or not. But it looks to me as though there isn't very much 19th century stuff included, and it seems to have mostly stuff for the parts of Surrey outside London and not so much for what is now in London, unless that was just my bad luck with the particular names I looked at. There is certainly some London stuff, but I'm sure some of mine must have left wills, so I'm guessing there are more which aren't included in this database.

[Deb N]

Hi Kiterunner,

What part of London/Surrey are you after?? If it's Lambeth, I found quite a few wills at the Lambeth Palace Library (The peeps who these wills belonged to came from Croydon, Surrey)

I found reference to them on A2A and went on LPA website and requested them online, I can't remember now I much I paid for the copies but I'm sure it was very reasonable!!

If this doesn't help you it may be of interest to someone else reading this!!!

[KiteRunner]

Thanks for the tip, Deb. I'll have a try at A2A later. I suppose the article in the Guardian made it sound as though it was all the Surrey wills!

It's one of those cases where I was fishing around to find likely wills which might help in tracing various of my Southwark area ancestors back a generation or two - they are all ones where I have a name of somebody and then I don't know who their parents were, but if I could find a will that mentioned that person (and the British Origin ones are fully indexed on all the names mentioned in the wills, even the witnesses) it would help. But since I don't know their parents' names, if I just find some wills on A2A which don't mention who the beneficiaries were it might be a bit hit and miss. Well, anyway, I'll try A2A later.

[Elizabeth Herts]

Kiterunner,

There are also lots of Surrey wills at the London Metropolitan Archives. I found some of mine there.

Here is the links:

City of London - London Signatures

[Christine in Herts]

I'd be grateful if someone could check for me whether the marriage ref for Harison COCK on British Origins is the Boyd's index (in which case, I'm not that bothered because I have copies of all the PRs for his marriages) or the Allegations.
The Allegations would be more interesting because his second marriage involved two weddings! The first was by licence in 1811 (Dec, I think, without checking) and the second in Sep (I think, likewise!) 1812. It would be very interesting to see what was said on the Allegation, and who was involved. There must have been some kind of problem with the first ceremony, and I have speculated that it could have been the licence.

Christine

[Christine in Herts]

I should say: I'm not asking for an actual look-up. (I don't want to ask people to compromise their terms and conditions.) I just want to know whether that would be a contributory factor in any future decision about a short subscription.

Christine

[KiteRunner]

Elizabeth, I don't think that London Signatures online database includes Surrey wills at the moment - it looks as though it only has Middlesex wills but it does include Surrey marriage bonds.

[Elizabeth Herts]

Kiterunner,

Yes, on checking it was marriage bonds that I found.

They are extremely useful and helped me get back to early 1700s.