Is there a Berkshire wills index online?

[newburychap]

I should think that these Wills abtracts are coming from the link I sent which is at the Wiltshire & Swindon RO.

Not so - Nick Hidden's site contains a selection of Berkshire wills from various sources - the common factor being that they relate to the Hungerford area. However, it should be noted that this is nothing like a complete index to Berkshire wills.

Nick's father Norman was a avid historian of the area and produced, amongst other things, a transcript of the Hungerford PRs. Hungerford includes the manor of Hidden - hence his interest in the area.

There are two published indexes covering two different time periods, the one by Phillemore covering  1508-1652 and published in1893 is available as a facsimile CD. The other is from the British Record Society and covers 1653-1710.

The BRO are currently trying to re-index the early wills as the Phillimore edition is somewhat unreliable - not least because the catalogue numbering is totally different today. 

[Vicwinann]

Hi,
The Wills list that Snowsell was talking about is from the Moonrakers site and there are hundreds of Berks transcriptons.  Nothing to do with the Wilts RO although that is probably where they came from originally.


http://www.moonrakers.org.uk/md/Probate-Docs/waix0.html

Regards
Vicwinann

[newburychap]

Hi,
The Wills list that Snowsell was talking about is from the Moonrakers site and there are hundreds of Berks transcriptons.  Nothing to do with the Wilts RO although that is probably where they came from originally.

http://www.moonrakers.org.uk/md/Probate-Docs/waix0.html

Regards
Vicwinann

The two sites do contain the same data - all copyright Nick Hidden.

The wills come from TNA, WSRO and BRO - perhaps others  - the focus is geographical (Hungerford & Wantage area) not on any particular probate court.

[yattonharry]

I tried to open that Moonfruit [first groan at the host] link and then [2nd groan] it took ages to load and I am on BB - then [3rd groan] did you check to see if the link was working prior to posting as it isn't working for me!

Cheers,
YattonHarry

[Vicwinann]

Hi,
It is Moonrakers. And yes, it is working perfectly for me.  I have also just clicked the link I sent and that is working too.
Vicwianann

[Ann of St Omer]

Hi Jill - I don't think there is an on-line one,  but I do have a microfiche one - who are you after?

DebbieG

Could I possibly ask you to look up a John Toomer - died Wargrave 1846.

[MatthewD76]

Hi Jill - I don't think there is an on-line one,  but I do have a microfiche one - who are you after?

DebbieG

Hi Debbie, would you be able to check your index for any references to the following names:

Chalk (or Chalke) in Thatcham between 1580-1800
Fulbrook (or Fulbrooke) in Thatcham c1680-1750
Whitebread (or Whitehead?) in Yattendon c1620-1700

I hope you will be able to help.

Matt

[snowsell]

Hi, I have had the following website for ages, not updated since 1998, but hope it will be of interest. I don't have the actual website address, other than it is Genuki Berkshire, so took the easy way out and just copied the search from Google!


Introduction to will abstracts
www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/BRKwills/

3 Apr 1998 – This is a collection of about 1000 abstracts of probate documents relating to ... Further information about Hiddens in Berkshire and the manor of ...

[snowsell]

It seems to have come up okay on my reply - scroll down to bottom for an alphabetical list of names.

Jill