Tuesday 11 June 2013

Probate material added to Genes Reunited

News of data joining Genes Reunited (www.genesreunited.com) - some of this looks like stuff not already available on FindmyPast (UPDATE: I have been informed all of this is already in fact on FMP, though some do not appear to be listed on the general search page on that site):

NEW WILLS AND PROBATE RECORDS ADDED TO GENES REUNITED

Today leading family history website Genes Reunited published new records including the Bank of England Wills Extracts from 1717-1845 and the London Probate Index from 1750-1858.

The Bank of England Wills Extracts is a fantastic resource for family historians containing over 60,000 entries giving an insight into the period 1717 – 1845. This latest record set contains extracts from the wills of those who held money in public funds as well as orders made for stockholders who went bankrupt.

From today people interested in uncovering more about the lives of their ancestors can visit www.genesreunited.co.uk and search the latest records listed below:

- Bank of England Wills Extracts 1717-1845
- London Probate Index 1750-1858
- Divorce Index 1858-1873
- Great Western Railway Shareholders 1832-1932
- Suffolk Testator Index 1847-1857

The Great Western Railway Shareholders Index details the records of the shareholders in the railway and holds approximately 440,000 individuals, with a total number of 570,464 records. A record entry includes executors, beneficiaries and others who were involved in transferring shareholdings.

Now that the records are available online, Genes Reunited has discovered Isambard Kingdom Brunel who was the engineer on the Great Western Railway project. As a shareholder Isambard appears in the Index following his death in 1859.

The newly added records are available online at www.genesreunited.co.uk and can be viewed by Platinum members or on a pay per view basis.

Rhoda Breakell, Head of Genes Reunited comments: “The Wills and Probate records, some of which date from 1717 up to 1932, are important resources for family historians, but also for those looking for relatives who have lived more recently. The easily-searchable database allows members to uncover important details about their own history at the click of a button. We are thrilled to be adding more records to our continually growing database.”

(With thanks to Natasha White)

Chris

My new book, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, is now available from Pen and Sword. My Scottish land and church records ebooks are available at http://www.gen-ebooks.com/unlock-the-past.html, whilst my next Pharos Scottish course, Scottish Research Online, starts Sep 4th - see http://pharostutors.com/details.php?coursenumber=102. Time to smash a few brick walls...!

3 comments:

  1. Hi Chris, just a clarification for you - all of the records on Genes Reunited are available on findmypast and have been for quite some time, the same goes for all previous and future releases.

    Many thanks
    Myko

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  2. Thanks Myko - I did check the list on FMP, and a few of them did not pop up. is the list complete (on the general search page?). Will amend the post

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  3. The list is complete, but obviously it shows categories in some cases rather than the specific record sets contained inside if part of something larger (which these things often are!).

    M

    ReplyDelete