Yorkshire Probate by Colin Blanshard Withers

Description

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Probate is both the most frustrating and the most rewarding source a genealogist can discover. Frustrating because of its complexity, particularly in the Diocese of York, and rewarding because it can unlock the personalities, likes, dislikes and personal relations of our ancestors. Where else could you discover that a seventeenth-century clergyman's son had ridden up to his father's house in the dead of night, broken open his strong-box, and stolen the vicar's remaining store of gold?

But in order to use the probate records one must first locate them, and then one has to understand their meaning. No-one has attempted to elucidate these twin requirements in one place in quite this way before, which is not surprising when one considers the enormity of the task. Colin Blanshard Withers has noted, described and explained more than 30 separate probate jurisdictions, and revealed several new, previously unknown caches of probate records, some from previously unknown jurisdictions. Not content with this already formidable undertaking, Colin has provided extensive indexes to the records he has found, and has summarised the nature of probate law and probate practice over seven centuries.

The result is a book which is unique in conception and execution, which adds huge amounts of information to our knowledge of the surviving records, and the interpretation of probate practice.