Abstracts of Wills and Administrations with estate duty 1796 to 19thC now online

[melba_schmelba]

Not sure if this is a new National Archives find or not  , but it appears many if not all of the abstracts of wills and administrations made for estate duty purposes from 1796 - 1903 may now all have been digitized and are available currently for download for free with I think a 100 record per month limit?

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_aq=abstract&_cr=IR%2026&_dss=range&_ro=any&_st=adv

[melba_schmelba]

Sorry to have got people's hopes up , but the vast majority of the abstracts seem to be from 1796 - 1820, with only a few after this date. I am not sure if there are some other records available associated with the duty, if there are, please post here .

[Mean_genie]

These records are the abstracts from wills and administrations in the Country Courts (ie NOT the Prerogative Court of Canterbury) 1796-1811, and they have been online for many years. They are from the period when death duties applied only to bequests outside the family, so they are very useful, but they only apply to a limited number of estates.

For the other registers in the series IR 26, you need to use the indexes in series IR 27 - you can search them by name on Findmypast, or download the individual index volumes from The National Archives - part of their digital microfilm collection https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/free-online-records-digital-microfilm/

The actual registers in series IR 26 (1812-1857 only) have been digitised by FamilySearch, but they can only be viewed on site at their Family History Centres and Affiliate Libraries, and they are not on any commercial site. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/613685?availability=Family%20History%20Library

[melba_schmelba]

These records are the abstracts from wills and administrations in the Country Courts (ie NOT the Prerogative Court of Canterbury) 1796-1811, and they have been online for many years. They are from the period when death duties applied only to bequests outside the family, so they are very useful, but they only apply to a limited number of estates.

For the other registers in the series IR 26, you need to use the indexes in series IR 27 - you can search them by name on Findmypast, or download the individual index volumes from The National Archives - part of their digital microfilm collection https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/free-online-records-digital-microfilm/

The actual registers in series IR 26 (1812-1857 only) have been digitised by FamilySearch, but they can only be viewed on site at their Family History Centres and Affiliate Libraries, and they are not on any commercial site. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/613685?availability=Family%20History%20Library

Wow, that is a very informative post Mean Genie thankyou . You can search the death duty registers on findmypast here
https://search.findmypast.co.uk/search-world-Records/index-to-death-duty-registers-1796-1903

there is also this on Ancestry but I think it only goes to 1811

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/70695/

I have always wondered (apart from the abstracts) what was in the actual death duty registers, are there any samples online?

[Bookbox]

I have always wondered (apart from the abstracts) what was in the actual death duty registers, are there any samples online?

The content is well explained in the standard TNA Research Guide ...
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/death-duties-1796-1903/

The registers are very difficult to reproduce satisfactorily because of the large page size, the complex way they are formatted, and the age and rather poor quality of many of the microfilms.

The best way to view them is on FamilySearch, as suggested above.

[Maiden Stone]

Thanks for these informative posts.

[coombs]

Sorry to have got people's hopes up , but the vast majority of the abstracts seem to be from 1796 - 1820, with only a few after this date. I am not sure if there are some other records available associated with the duty, if there are, please post here .

Still much better than the Bletchingdon Oxfordshire poor law records at Oxfordshire Record Office which said 1678-1900 in the catalogue, when in reality it was 1678, 1875-1900. Wild goose chase, as 1830-1860 was the eras I wanted. Would have helped if they had put the gap inbetween 1678 and 1875 in.

In regards to these abstracts of Wills and Administrations with estate duty 1796 to 19thC, well I found a few of mine on there so will download to documents.

[melba_schmelba]

I have always wondered (apart from the abstracts) what was in the actual death duty registers, are there any samples online?

The content is well explained in the standard TNA Research Guide ...
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/death-duties-1796-1903/

The registers are very difficult to reproduce satisfactorily because of the large page size, the complex way they are formatted, and the age and rather poor quality of many of the microfilms.

The best way to view them is on FamilySearch, as suggested above.

Thanks bookbox , the National Archives guide is very thorough, and it is nice to see a small snapshot of one of the register pages to give you an idea of what you can see. I note this part below, probably explains why the abstracts were made, as I have found out, mostly up to 1815 (not 1820).

"From 1796 bequests to children, spouses, parents and grandparents were not taxable. In 1805 this exemption was reduced to spouse and parents, and from 1815 only bequests to the spouse were exempt."

[melba_schmelba]

Still much better than the Bletchingdon Oxfordshire poor law records at Oxfordshire Record Office which said 1678-1900 in the catalogue, when in reality it was 1678, 1875-1900. Wild goose chase, as 1830-1860 was the eras I wanted. Would have helped if they had put the gap inbetween 1678 and 1875 in.

In regards to these abstracts of Wills and Administrations with estate duty 1796 to 19thC, well I found a few of mine on there so will download to documents.

Oh dear . Yes I am glad you managed to find something, I did find a few myself . The abstracts are in tabular form, with list of wills/administrations on the left, then executors, then legatees, then a summary of the bequests that were not excluded from duty (as I found, this meant most are up to 1815 when the rules changed).