The South Dorset Group met on 8th May 2002 for a talk by Lucy Jefferis of 'The Wiltshire Wills Project' based at the Wiltshire and Archives in Trowbridge. Tony Johnson, the South Dorset Group's press reporter has written the following review of the evening's events.

Lucy Jefferis described her work as an Archivist working with the Wiltshire Wills Project. This is an undertaking to preserve and catalogue the wills held in the Salisbury Diocesan Probate Collection, which includes some areas of Dorset. The scheme, lasting for three years, in partly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and covers testaments from 1540 until 1858, when the legal responsibilities connected with probate were transferred from the Church to the Civil Authorities. Although the great majority of wills were written, cases exist where a person too weak to write, would declare his intentions before witnesses, and this would be valid. Before 1882, wives were unable to bequeath property unless it was in their possession before marriage, although widows and spinsters had no restrictions. The testaments, in many cases, were very long-winded, commencing with a religious preamble copied from a legal volume, and giving detailed instructions as to the disposal of possessions. Lucy gave many humorous examples of bequests of furniture and bedding, in some cases labelled with the names of the new owners. Members of the armed forces were encouraged to complete wills on elaborately printed forms, and these used a simplified procedure.

Of course, much of this information, relating to family relationships, is of great interest to the family history archivists, and although this information is not yet available on the Internet, Lucy would be happy to answer queries if you contact through the Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge.

For those of you interested in finding out more about wills, Lucy recommended a book entitled "When Death Us Do Part - Understanding and Interpreting The Probate Records of Early Modern England" by Tom Arkell, Nesta Evans and Nigel Goose. ISBN n. 0904920429 and published by Local Population Studies, 2000. Price £14.50

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