Tracing Your Welsh Ancestors by Beryl Evans

Author:Beryl Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REFERENCE / Genealogy & Heraldry
ISBN: 9781473861954
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2015-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

Hereford

Register copy wills, 1858–1928. Ms indexes, 1858–1928

In addition to the official probate records, some wills, inventories and other papers associated with probate can be found in the consistory court papers, which are filed with the diocesan records of the Church in Wales. The index to these records can be accessed through the online catalogue of the National Library of Wales.

Hundreds of wills are included in the collections of family, estate and personal papers at Welsh county archive offices and at the National Library of Wales; they can be searched on the latter’s online catalogues or through the Archives Wales website. Some of these might not survive in the official probate records or may never have been proved, or might have been proved outside of Wales, but they can also be searched for in the online catalogue of the National Library of Wales.

There are roughly 190,000 wills held at the National Library of Wales and only about 1,000 of these have been written in Welsh, over three quarters of which are from the diocese of Bangor. To give some indication as to the variety of information that can be gleaned from a will, here are a few examples. Amongst the collection are wills of the famous, such as the Welsh Robin Hood, Twm Sion Cati (alias Thomas Johnes), of Fountaine Gate, Caron (SD1609-20); that of Howell Harris, the famous Welsh religious reformer (BR1773-51); and details of a philanderer, namely Oakley Leigh of Lampeter (SD1788-80) who was ‘Agent to the tyrannical Squire, Sir Herbert Lloyd.’ The parish register recorded his extramarital exploits and no less than eleven ‘natural’ children were named as beneficiaries in his will. Miles Bassett of Cardiff (LL1680-10) gives details of a family disagreement!

And [I could put] as little confidence in my crabbed churlish unnaturall, heathenish and unhuman sonne inlaw Leyson Evans and Anne his wife; I never found noe love, shame nor honestie with them … but basenesse and falsehood, knaverie and deceipt in them all, ever unto me … they were my greatest Enemies, I had no comfort in anie of them, but trouble & sorrow ever, they sued me in Londone in the Exchequier and in the Comonplease, and in the Marches at Ludlowe, and in the great Sessions at Cardiff and thus they have vexed me ever of a long time.

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