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• Middlesex Baptisms Index 1538-1882 on British Origins January 2011
• New records added to Surrey & South London Will Abstracts 1470-1858 on the National Wills Index December 2011
• Gloucester Wills Index 1801-1858 on the National Wills Index November 2011
• Wills & Administrations for Lichfield & Coventry 1516-1652 on the National Wills Index November 2011
• Cheltenham Probate Abstracts 1660-1740 on the National Wills Index October 2011
• Surrey 1695 Association Oath Rolls on British Origins September 2011
• Free search across Hertfordshire Wills Index 1415-1857 on the National Wills Index September 2011
• Somerset Electoral Registers 1832-1914 on British Origins May 2011
• Additional Oxfordshire Wills May 2011
• Surrey & York Marriages on British Origins January 2011
• British Record Society Probate Collection December 2010

The Middlesex Baptisms dataset records nearly 100,000 baptisms (nearly 300,000 names) in Middlesex and London which are not included with the International Genealogical Index (IGI). In nearly all cases the names of the parents are given, often maiden name, and sometimes details including occupation and birth date. Additional records added to one of the richest collections on the National Wills Index. Fully indexed abstracts of every Surrey will known to still exist, over 29,800 abstracts, including over 562,700 names mentioned in these wills.

The abstracts can provide a more detailed picture of how your ancestors lived than almost any other genealogical resource. The abstracts include all personal names (testator, beneficiaries, executors, witnesses, overseers, and others) with their relationships, place names, occupations, monetary and other bequests, and descriptions of lands. The indexes include the names of every person, place (many outside Surrey), subject (eg occupations), and date mentioned in the will.

This calendar of wills proved and letters of administration granted in the Diocese of Gloucester 1801-1858 is arranged by date of probate. It lists name, parish and occupation of the deceased.

This collection completes the calendar for Gloucester wills available on Origins.net, ending at 1858, the date on which probate was transferred to (civil) district registries. Earlier Gloucester wills are available in the British Record Society Probate Collection.

The present volume (British Record Society volume 7) contains references to some 50,000 testamentary records at Lichfield and Birmingham. The diocese of Lichfield and Coventry was, until the year 1541, one of the largest in England, including the whole of the counties of Stafford, Chester, and Derby, parts of Shropshire, Warwickshire, Lancashire, Westmorland and Yorkshire, and extending into Wales held testamentary jurisdiction over some small portions of Flintshire and Denbighshire. Some few Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire wills may also be found in the present volume.

Available to search in the British Record Society Probate Collection

Probate records are a most valuable primary source for the study of social history, local history and family history. Wills and inventories comprise the main probate records, and are supplemented by administrations, accounts and other documents created when disputes arose.

Inventories and valuations were part of the process of proving wills, but relatively few have survived. There is a reasonably high survival rate for inventories in the period 1660 to 1740 amounting to about 50% in Gloucestershire, but outside this period there are very few. Wills and inventories give a colourful snapshot of the lives of our ancestors, providing an insight into household arrangements, household and occupational goods, lifestyle, wealth and status, providing evidence of kinship, family sizes, occupations and landholdings.

There is a wealth of rich information included in these 537 Cheltenham abstracts, including wills from; yeomen, cordwainers (cobblers), blacksmiths, feltmakers and many more occupations, listing hugely detailed inventories.

Oath rolls are an underused source of individuals' names in the 16th to early 18th centuries. They could contain the names of a substantial proportion of the adult male population within the areas which they covered, and so offer a valuable pre-19th century "census substitute".

Nearly 12,000 Surrey names dating from 1695 can now be searched in this British Origins collection, available to British Origins and Total Access subscribers. The collection includes Association Oath Rolls for:

• City of London Livery Companies, 1696
• Surrey, 1695

Details of over 27,630 individuals can now be searched on the National Wills Index.

This index seeks to embrace in one alphabetical sequence all the wills (both original and registered copies), inventories, administration bonds, accounts and other related documents which survive among the records of the Archdeaconries of Huntingdon (Hitchin Division) and St Albans now held at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies.
Coverage may be summarised as follows:

• Archdeaconry of Huntingdon (Hitchin Division):
  Original wills (together with some inventories), 1557-1857 (Ref, HW); will registers, 1557-1843 (Ref, HR); inventories, 1568-1789 (Ref, AHH22 includes some administration bonds); administration bonds and accounts, 1609-1857 (Ref, AHH23).
• Archdeaconry of St Albans:
  Original wills, including administration bonds and inventories filed with them, 1518-1857 (Ref, AW); will registers, also including grants of administration, 1415-1857 (Ref, AR); inventories, 1518-1764 (Ref, A25); no original probate accounts are known to have survived for this archdeaconry.

Copies of the originals can be ordered online for £10GBP. These are supplied digitally by Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies and delivered via a PDF to your email address.

Now available on the National Wills Index for British Origins and Total Access subscribers.

While census records provide addresses at ten-year intervals and civil registration records do so for each event, electoral registers are the only records that provide frequent, regular and authoritative information on an ancestor’s property. They can therefore be used to trace changes of address year by year.

Also, they are the only records for this period which provide direct evidence as to whether an ancestor’s dwelling is rented or owned, and then whether by leasehold or freehold (sometimes even the length of the lease is given).

In addition, they may give an indication of trade or business premises not apparent from other records, or provide other information about the property, such as the existence of a garden or pasture.

The geographical organization of the original printed volumes can make finding an individual difficult, not least since you need to be familiar with the electoral geography of Somerset for the relevant year in order to know where a particular town or parish is listed. Even if you have a "home" address for ancestor from other records, he might claim his vote on the basis of some other piece of qualifying property elsewhere in the county.

Origins’ index to these records overcomes these problems by providing a complete searchable text, which means you can search on any combination of personal name and place both for the individual volumes and for a longer timespan. And even if your ancestors never gave a Somerset home address in other records, this makes it possible to check very quickly whether they had a significant property holding in the county.

Now available on British Origins for British Origins and Total Access subscribers.

Additional Oxfordshire Wills
This dataset indexes all the surviving probate records of the bishop and archdeacon of Oxford, covering the period 1516 to 1857, and of the Oxfordshire Peculiars, covering the period 1547-1856.

Wills offer such wonderful possibilities. Oxfordshire Wills Index 1516-1857 is well worth checking for anyone who lived in or adjacent to the county.

Available on the National Wills Index for British Origins and Total Access subscribers.

Surrey & York Marriages on British Origins

• Surrey Marriage Index: 1500–1846
  This index, kindly made available by West Surrey Family History Society, covers nearly 270,000 marriages - ie nearly 540,000 brides and grooms - for the whole of rural Surrey, portions of Metropolitan Surrey, some Middlesex parishes, and strays from all over the UK, especially London, Middlesex and Sussex.
  The Index is complete for Surrey up to 1837 except some Metropolitan parishes – it contains all the parishes of West and rural East Surrey. There are also a substantial number (43,000) of entries from Middlesex parishes for the period 1813-1837 derived from a slip index created by Cliff Webb for this period.
  
  
• York Marriage Bonds & Allegations Index: 1613–1839
  This Index to The Dean and Chapter of York's Marriage Bonds and Allegations (Applications for marriage without Banns), covers over 150,000 marriage licences (over 300,000 names).
  Archbishop of York granted marriage licences for the Diocese of York and the remainder of the Northern province when more than one jurisdiction was involved.
  Information in the marriage bonds includes the couple's names and the date on which the bond was taken out. Originally the bonds were completed in Latin and English. After 1753, when the use of English was enforced for all legal documents, a printed form was introduced for marriage allegations, which shows ages, parishes and the church named for the ceremony. Bonds were no longer taken out after 1823 but allegations were kept.

Now available on British Origins for British Origins and Total Access subscribers.

British Record Society Probate Collection
The British Record Society (BRS) probate indexes show the names and dates of several million wills and other probate documents. Spanning four centuries across Britain, the indexes show you where to go to find the original documents.

Our BRS Probate Collection provides exclusive online access to the BRS indexes, via a Google-like search. When you view search results as highlighted snippets, you can click to view images of the original indexes to find all the information you need to contact the relevant record offices to be able to examine the original documents.

Over time, as the BRS volumes are indexed individually on NWI, you will be able to order hard copies of the wills online, and eventually be able to access the documents themselves.

Now available on the National Wills Index for British Origins and Total Access subscribers.

For information about material found on Origins.net contact pr@origins.net

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