American Source Records in England, 1600s-1800s

Span the Atlantic with this essential collection of English will abstracts, church records, and passenger lists. Largely comprised of English will summaries, this data set can tie your American ancestors to their English roots. You will find approximately 141,000 individuals referenced in the fully indexed pages of twelve titles first published by the Genealogical Publishing Company.

English source records can help you research an American settler's English legacy, closing the gap between generations and continents. Significantly, several volumes found here, as a group, make up a comprehensive resource for American wills proved in London from the early 1600s to the late 1700s.

Though information included on these volumes differ, records found on this data set might include:

• Individual's name and marital status;
• Emigration dates;
• Property information;
• Names & relationships of family members;
• Place of death;
• Date of probate.

English wills can be an important genealogical resource tool, often providing names and locations of relatives, names of relatives who emigrated to the colonies, address information, and data about the deceased's life and characteristics. The facts provided by such records can help you establish family connections and determine the economic status of your ancestors.

Wills can provide genealogical details not available through any other source: family relationships, inventory of property, financial and demographic details, and biographical information. Such information can lead to other research sources, including vital records and land records. To gather even more data, you may also want to try looking for an obituary, gravestone, and cemetery records for the deceased.

Increasingly common starting in the mid-1500s, wills initially were validated by the established English church, usually through local courts. In more complex cases, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) had ultimate jurisdiction. For example, the PCC proved all wills for individuals who died outside of the country while holding property in England. Thus, PCC records are particularly critical for those hoping to make connections between England and America. This data set includes exceptional coverage of PCC documents relating to American wills.

In 1858, all probate issues transferred from church to government responsibility. All wills established after 1858 can be located at the Principal Registry of the Family Division, located at Somerset House in London. Prior to Victorian reform, English property laws were extremely complex. The more an individual's worth, the more likely he was to create a will.

Understanding English wills and probate can be complicated. Here are several legal issues to keep in mind as you research these resources:

1. If inheritance issues were straightforward, a will may not have been proved at all, thus saving the family time and expense caused by probate. In such a case, you may not find any record of a will, no matter what the family status.

2. If a will was in place, the testator (maker of the will) had the right to bequeath land and personal property as he saw fit. If lands were not mentioned in a will, they went to the heir-in-law, usually the eldest son. If no son existed, lands were shared among any daughters. Widows had a right to one-third of any property, relinquished if they remarried. In the absence of a will, England's 1670 Statute of Distribution law established that personal property (moveables) was to be distributed as follows:

• Children with no surviving widow: whole property was split equally among all children; an only child received all property.
• Children and a surviving widow: two-thirds to the children and one-third to the widow.
• Widow with no surviving children: one-half to the widow and one- half to the father of the deceased if living; if father not living, to the mother or siblings.
• If no surviving widow or children: all property to father of the deceased, if living; if father not living, to the mother or siblings.
• England's 1677 Statute of Frauds law dictated that property could not be distributed by spoken testament. Executors must settle property as ordered by a will. Property not distributed by a will was considered intestate.
• No English law required someone creating a will to name a disinherited child. Unfortunately for genealogists, many wills thus ignore some children, leaving researchers to rely on other records for confirmation of certain children's position.

Sources

• Baxter, Angus. In Search of your British & Irish Roots. Baltomore: Genealogical Publishing Company. 1991. Pages 71-4.
• Szucs, Loretto Dennis and Luebking, Sandra Hargreaves, editors. The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy. Salt Lake City: Ancestry, Inc. 1997. Pages 265-6.