Family history website Ancestry has published the records of the Prerogative and Exchequer Court of York.
The record set consists of 2,462,539 wills and probate records dating from 1389 to 1858.
Previously, the Prerogative Court of York records, held at the Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, were only available online in indexed form on Findmypast.
Before the introduction of a civil Court of Probate in 1858, wills in England and Wales were proved in church courts.
The wealthier a person was, the higher-ranked the court. The most important courts were the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and the Prerogative Court of York, which covered the dioceses of Chester, Carlisle, Durham and York.
The newly-available wills are therefore a fascinating resource for anyone with wealthy ancestors in northern England, offering the chance to hear their voice in their own words and see what they owned and which relatives they left it to.
The Prerogative Court of York records include the will of Ann Ward, proved after her death in 1789. Unusually for a woman in the 18th-century, Ann ran her own business, a printing business she inherited from her husband Caesar after his death. She is best known for printing Laurence Sterne’s experimental novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. In her will, she leaves property to her daughter Mary, saying it is “for her own sole and separate use” and “without being subject to the debts control or engagements of her present or any after taken husband”.
Separately, Ancestry also added a set of Yorkshire bishops’ transcripts of Church of England parish registers. The record set dates from 1558 to 1912 and consists of 13,500,549 records. Bishops’ transcripts were copies kept by the bishop of parish registers. They are therefore a good alternative source for finding parish records, which include vital records of our ancestors’ baptisms, marriages and burials.
