Author Topic: Could someone please help with a 17th century will?  (Read 656 times)

Offline Gormer

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Could someone please help with a 17th century will?
« on: Wednesday 03 January 18 18:38 GMT (UK) »
This is an English will from Dorset in 1670. The bottom of the 2nd page is giving me trouble - is it a codicil, or some kind of addition? An indication of probate? A named executor (although it's not the one named earlier, it seems!)? It doesn't look like the Latin probate inscriptions I've seen before. I can make out a date and what appears to be the word Lyndsay (a person? - place?). I've uploaded both the section in question and the whole 2nd page of the will with this in context, hoping that it might provide some answers. Thank you to those of you with better eyes than me!

Offline Bookbox

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Re: Could someone please help with a 17th century will?
« Reply #1 on: Wednesday 03 January 18 18:45 GMT (UK) »
Hi, and welcome to RootsChat  :)

The words giving trouble are in abbreviated Latin ...

Jurat(us) fuit Ex(ecuto)r cora(m)
M(agist)ro Lyndsay 21 Maij
1670


The executor was sworn before Master Lyndsay on 21 May 1670.

(It's not a full probate clause, just an annotation. Lyndsay is the church official who authorised the probate.)

Offline Gormer

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Re: Could someone please help with a 17th century will?
« Reply #2 on: Wednesday 03 January 18 18:48 GMT (UK) »
Oh, thank you! That makes so much more sense. So would that mean, if the will was written on 5 May 1670 and the last date here (May 21st) is the probate annotation, I can assume this person died between those two days, or does this simply mean that that the necessary channels were set up for the will to be carried out on the event of said person's death?

Offline Bookbox

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Re: Could someone please help with a 17th century will?
« Reply #3 on: Wednesday 03 January 18 18:58 GMT (UK) »
if the will was written on 5 May 1670 and the last date here (May 21st) is the probate annotation, I can assume this person died between those two days

Yes, that's right.