Calendar of Grants

[dotty.]

The calendar of grants is now available on ancestry.co.uk. Ancestry transcribers have made thier own surname index of the calendar of grants from 1858 - 1941. The calendar of grants is the national probate index and anyone who's will or administration went to probate in those years is included in the index. You search by surname and then you can browse the transcribed results, you can put in the exact name and date of death (if known) but if you do it that way you invariably miss something interesting and so i suggest a general search for a family surname and see what you find.
Ancestry cannot provide copies of the wills and there is advice on ordering the copies, though rather than using the district probate registries , I find it often is cheaper and quicker to find out which record office was the depositery for the probate office, for instance, wills proved at Liverpool 1858 - 1962 are at the lancashire record office and copies can be ordered for the cost of photocopying.
Cheshire wills are available to order online at
http://apps.cheshirew...Epayments/search.aspx
Other country record offices may offer a similar excellent service and so it is worth checking out the CRO websites.

[dotty.]

If anyone needs me to look for an entry I don;t mind as I'm doing nowt at the moment lol

[spudqueen]

That looks really god Dot. I'm not on Ancestry at the moment (lack of money due to new kitchen!). If you have a spare moment you could look up Lord for me. I don't know if you'll find anything, but my Lord family emigrated to Russia (pre-revolution), but I have heard a tale that in the 1920s or 30s that members of the family here were left money in a will from Russia. Whether that would be in the records or not I don't know.

[dotty.]

if the property that was left was held in england or wales then the grant would have been made at the principal probate registry i suppose, do you have a christian name as there are loads of lords, or a location?

[spudqueen]

They were originally from Rochdale. The only names I know are John and Christopher, though I'm pretty sure there were others.

[dotty.]

I've searched for the grants of any Lord in the 1920s and there are 300plus, but not many dying overseas, a spinster in New York, a charles ernest dying in France in 1926 and a John Lord dying in Christ Church New zealand with a grant at the PPR london to Reuben Lord

theres a arthur hugh matthew in canada in 1931 grant at the PPR.

The transcribing of this index is absolutely diabolical, i have submitted corrections on over a dozen enried JUST for the Lords in 1920s and 30s!!! They have omitted any date of death or grant for any entry that is split between pages in the calendars which means there are loads of part indexed entried on the ancestry transcription!!! plus stupid errors like transcribing essex as Ess Finland!!! idiots and monkeys must have been paid to do the job!

[spudqueen]

Thanks for looking anyway Dot. It's one of those things that ONE day I will track down! :Lets just hope when I'm looking properly that no monkeys were involved!