Woohoo! National Archives now free to download!

[TressiliansStone]

Calling all history buffs!

The National Archives have made their digitised content free to download during lockdown!

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/news/digital-downloads/

Erm, tap me on the shoulder when lockdown's lifted, won't you? I'll be glued to my screen and might not notice...

For wills in England & Wales from 1858 onwards, you need the modern site: probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#calendar

Thank you!

Scottish wills you can find at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk. They're pay-per-view, and all wills 1513 to 1925 are available to download. Soldiers' and airmen's wills between 1857 and 1965 are also available.

Guide here:
www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/guides/wills-and-testaments

Scottish wills (not soldiers and airmen) after 1925 haven't been digitised.

*it says "Wills from the jurisdiction of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury"

What's the significance of that? Can i not get wills in general?*

Older wills (pre 1858) for people not wealthy enough to be dealt with by the prerogative courts of Canterbury and York tend to be in local record offices - sometimes if you get very lucky transcriptions have been published (books or very occasionally online) for a particular area but this is by no means systematic.

Preogative court of York (wealthy people with most of their lands in the archbishopric of York) wills are held by the Borthwick Institute.

Re your grandfather's military records, PJ, it depends which war.

For WW2, there are the collections mentioned above. However these mostly aren't records about individual personnel.

To get an ancestor's WW2 or recent military record, you generally have to write to MOD: www.gov.uk/get-copy-military-service-records/apply-for-someone-elses-records

For WW1 records, the picture is both better and worse. Many are available online, either directly from the National Archives or Kew has contracted them out to FindMyPast and Ancestry. See here for what's available where:
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/?research-category=online&sub-category%5B%5D=first-world-war

Fortunately you can search the commercial sites without a subscription before committing to one where you think you have a hit. Knowing your grandfather's place and date of birth is a good head start, as these are noted in the records and you'll be able to include them in the search boxes.

HOWEVER. Huge swathes of WW1 records are completely missing, due to WW2 bomb damage to the record office. Those which survive are mostly from the Burnt Collection, or are those which had been sent to another office to be analysed (WW1 outcomes were used to predict WW2's likely rates of post-war incapacity and pensions). So if your grandfather was injured in WW1, his service record is more likely to have survived.

The one type of record that survived for pretty much all those who served in WW1 is the medal card (and medal roll, medal list). All those who served in theatres of war were awarded the Victory Medal and British War Medal. There were also other common types of medal: 1914 Star, 1914-15 Star, Silver War Badge (for those injured and discharged). Those records may give pointers as to where your grandfather served, but if he has a common name it can be a thankless task sifting them.

Try this project by livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk, which was seeded using the medal cards. Someone might have filled out a bit of his profile, helping you pick him out.

There are even some records from the Boer War online at Ancestry – a set called UK, Casualties of the Boer War, 1899-1902 www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1912/

Might seem unlikely to include the grandfather of anyone living... except I was speaking just today to a family member whose grandfather served in the Boer War.

Oh.

This has prompted me to look up a distant family member who died in WW1. His record is there, but officer records aren't yet digitised and have to be ordered on paper.

Just put two and two together. Manchester Regt, June 1916. He served with Wilfred Owen, didn't he? Both 2nd Lieuts. Must have known each other.

The military records are a fascinating resource. I found my second great-grandfather’s military records - he served with the Imperial Yeomanry in the Boer War when he was 20 and sadly died the First World War. The Imperial Yeomanry records even gave a physical description of him.

OMG Ancestry is now free until 10 May!!!

(On the excuse of that being VE Day: handing out free crack is more like it...)

Ancestry may also be free through your library - here it is always free in the library - but free throughout lockdown to access via your library card at home.

I've got free access to fmp via library login but only had two searches before it blocks results with charging page. Apparently the capacity is limited.

I just looked but may ancestor's will still seems to be there as costing about £3.5 (I bought it last year) rather than free.

Once you get to the checkout, Xenia, the price will come up as £0.00.

That is very helpful. There is an unusual surname for the one I was looking for whose will I already have but I will search for any others of that family.

Thank you so much for this!

Bit of a request, can anyone read the word/name above ‘bookshop’ at all please?

Looks like "provisions" to me.

Yes, "Provisions dealer".

Thank you so much seems obvious now!

For those of you with ancestors from Oxfordshire, there is a fantastic database, ofhs wills. Always worth a look and sometimes find relatives popping up as executors or witnesses even if no Will from them.