Search For Post-1858 Wills is Buggy

[4b2]

It seems the UK government has changed their process for ordering wills online (in the last seven years).

I have just used the site - https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/ - to search for 15 wills/admins. Searching 1858-1995 will take you to images, which you have to type in the correct details for.

Sometimes this works fine, but sometimes it provides zero results, even if there are entries in the probate index. For example, a search for John Jones in 1973 provides no results; and a search for Frances Roberts in 1951 provides results for people with surnames like France.

Does anyone have any insights into this issue?

[KGarrad]

You may have to look for probate in subsequent years?
I have, on occasion, had to look 5 or 6 years after the death!

[heywood]

Sometimes this works fine, but sometimes it provides zero results, even if there are entries in the probate index. For example, a search for John Jones in 1973 provides no results; and a search for Frances Roberts in 1951 provides results for people with surnames like France.

I thought I would try for Frances Roberts. I checked with Ancestry and there are five -all with a middle name.
I searched just for ‘Roberts Frances’.
I wonder if, in this case, you entered the first name in the last name box in error?
No other boxes completed.
Scroll down to “ Image Search Results” and it shows ‘3 document pages returned’.
1st page opened is ‘McQueen’ but next page shows the Roberts entries.
I suppose ‘McQ’ is for the ‘Q’ in alphabet followed by ‘R’.
Apologies for this long answer. 

[4b2]

I wonder if, in this case, you entered the first name in the last name box in error?
No other boxes completed.
Scroll down to “ Image Search Results” and it shows ‘3 document pages returned’.
1st page opened is ‘McQueen’ but next page shows the Roberts entries.
I suppose ‘McQ’ is for the ‘Q’ in alphabet followed by ‘R’.

The names were entered in the correct order. I tried searching for year of death 1951 and year of probate 1951 and was able to get the correct record, with the same results you mentioned. Though the year of death was 1950.

It seems it works best if you just enter the year of probate as the year of death.

[heywood]

Glad you found it.
I just searched using your information:

‘a search for Frances Roberts in 1951 provides results for people with surnames like France.’


There were no surnames ‘France’ though - just the few I mentioned re 1951.

[CaroleW]

The old probate website - which worked wonderfully - was taken down & revamped in 2022.  Utter chaos resulted as you will see from the following thread

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=860108.0