The Registry of Deeds records cover a vast range of documents. The majority were leases. There were some mortgages, marriage settlements, wills & bills of discovery. By registering the document you ensured that there was a record of it in a Government office, should the original(s) be lost. The information in the Registry of Deeds is known as a memorial. It’s a fairly comprehensive summary of the original document. In the case of a will it doesn’t actually tell you “who got what”, it tells you what the writer of the will intended. If he later died penniless, as with any will, the bequests may not have been honoured.
There was a fee to pay for registering a document, and not everyone did register them. (It wasn’t compulsory). For wills, in my experience, only a small percentage of the population did register theirs. But obviously if you find one it’s a real bonus.
