Author Topic: Copy of Will  (Read 622 times)

Offline Boomeranger

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Copy of Will
« on: Saturday 05 May 18 03:28 BST (UK) »
My grandfather died in Glasgow in May 1938. Is there any way I can see his Will?
Likewise my grandmother who died in Glasgow in 1947? I am in Australia so there is no way I can visit any archives in Scotland, so if that is required, any suggestions how to go about it, long distance?

Offline mckha489

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Re: Copy of Will
« Reply #1 on: Saturday 05 May 18 05:13 BST (UK) »

Offline Boomeranger

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Re: Copy of Will
« Reply #2 on: Saturday 05 May 18 07:43 BST (UK) »
Thanks for that, I'll give it a try.

Offline Forfarian

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Re: Copy of Will
« Reply #3 on: Saturday 05 May 18 10:07 BST (UK) »
My grandfather died in Glasgow in May 1938. Is there any way I can see his Will?
Likewise my grandmother who died in Glasgow in 1947?
This is a yes .... but ....

The information on the page Mckha has quite correctly referred you to is fine if you are doing the research in person and in-house, but it doesn't tell you the full story if you want to get the documents from afar.

For this period, you start by consulting the Calendars of Confirmation (don't look for 'probate' as there is no such procedure in Scots Law). These are printed tomes, one for each year. They list alphabetically by surname all confirmations granted in that year, so although most are confirmed within a year of the death it is quite common to have to look through several volumes, starting with the year of death, to find the one you want.

The Calendars are available in some public libraries in Scotland, or in digital form in the Historic Search Room in the National Records of Scotland. You need to have a reader's ticket for the NRS to use the latter.

Once you know the date and the court where the confirmation was granted, you consult the in-house index at NRS to get the catalogue number for the volume containing the court and date you are interested in, and you order that volume.

However many (most)? volumes of wills and testaments are not stored in the same building as the Historical Search Room, so you have to place your order and come back a day or two later to see the volume.

If you want a copy of it you have to order it in the search room, and it will arrive in due course by post. There is a charge for photocopying. (They probably have plans to continue digitising wills and making them available via the SP web site, but that isn't imminent as far as I know.)

So if you have a reader's ticket and you can spend a day or three in Edinburgh, it's easy enough to do but takes a bit of time.

There are two possible ways of getting these wills without going to Edinburgh.

One is to contact the NRS using the contact form on their web site https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/about-us/contact-form giving them the names and exact dates of death, and ask them to find, copy and send you the wills. They will charge you for this service and for the photocopying, and it could take a few weeks if they are very busy.

The other is to hire a professional researcher. See http://www.asgra.co.uk/ which could be quicker but you would have to pay for the researcher's time as well as for the copying. I do not know, never having done either, whether a professional researcher's time would cost more than the NRS's own search charge.

Don't forget that they may not actually have left wills at all.

Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.


Offline Boomeranger

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Re: Copy of Will
« Reply #4 on: Saturday 05 May 18 22:21 BST (UK) »
Goodness! Thanks so much for that very detailed information, it all sounds rather daunting! Maybe by the time my grandchildren are my age it will have been digitised! Thanks again.

Offline Forfarian

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Re: Copy of Will
« Reply #5 on: Saturday 05 May 18 22:28 BST (UK) »
Goodness! Thanks so much for that very detailed information, it all sounds rather daunting!
It's not really, provided you are aware in advance of what is involved. I've spent many a happy hour poring over vast volumes in the Historical Search Room, marvelling at some of the things people put in their wills!
Never trust anything you find online (especially submitted trees and transcriptions on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and other commercial web sites) unless it's an image of an original document - and even then be wary because errors can and do occur.