Devon

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The aim of the Devon Wills Project is to provide a finding-aid in the form of a consolidated index of Devon wills, administrations and inventories, covering (and distinguishing between) original documents, probate copies, transcripts and abstracts. The index covers only testators, not other named individuals. The Project is not itself transcribing or collecting transcriptions or abstracts of wills.

The project involves systematically transcribing information obtained from various "sources", i.e. indexes, calendars, catalogues, etc. Wills, etc., are taken as related to Devon if the testator is identified, or can be assumed, as being of Devon, even if the will was proved elsewhere. The period covered is in general up to 1857, at which time ecclesiastical courts were disbanded and the probate of all Devon wills came under the jurisdiction of the Principal Probate Registry (PPR) in London. (For further information on both pre- and post-1857 wills see the TNA Leaflet Wills and Probate Records.) However, given their current lack of consolidated document catalogues, we have in the case of the Devon Record Office, the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office and the North Devon Record Office, relaxed our 1857 limit, and instead tried to provide complete coverage of all their wills, administrations and inventories. (We have treated the North Devon Athenaeum similarly, in view of its close association with the North Devon Record Office.)

N.B. Users who find entries in our consolidated index of interest to them should note the code given in the Source column of the index. Then they should look up this code in the list of Sources below, and open the corresponding Source page. In the introductory notes for that particular Source they will find information about where they should go, or who they should contact, to see (or perhaps be able to obtain their own copy of) the particular will, transcript or abstract. The Devon Wills Project itself cannot help with such requests. Users who don't at first find the person they are looking for should consider the ways in which that person's surname might have been spoken, and thus possible phonetically based spelling variations of the name. It is often the first vowel in a surname which proved flexible, e.g. Hallman/Helman/Hillman/Holman, Peeke/Pick/Pyke, Harrell/Hearle, Toker/Tucker, Berry/Burie, Diamond/Deyman, Lang/Long, Butler/Boteler.

Each index item includes a Type field indicating the form of document referred to, namely: "or" - Original, "co" - Copy, "ab" - Abstract, "tr" - Transcript, and "le" - List Entry. This last type is used when the source from which the index item was transcribed neither contains nor leads to any further information about the item. The type "ab" is used both for detailed abstracts including all essential information in a will, and for brief extracts. The county/country name field uses the appropriate (three-letter) Chapman Code.

Square brackets in index items serve three different purposes. Sometimes they indicate an assumption that the co-ordinators or transcribers have made about an item which is supported by other evidence in the original but not actually shown there. They are also used to direct users of the index to variant surnames. Finally, they are used to indicate standardised modern spellings of place names, inserted when the place name given in the original document used some other spelling or failed to identify a particular parish.

The ultimate aim of the Project is to include information taken from all existing published or publicly available sources of information about Devon wills, administrations and inventories, i.e. of all Devon testamentary material, including the information (mainly just name and date) that is provided in published calendars of wills that were being held at Exeter prior to the destruction of the Exeter Probate Office during World War II, wills for which very few copies, abstracts or transcripts exist. (This testamentary material relates to a number of different Probate Courts.)

For an interim version of the consolidated index see above. This incorporates entries from various sources that had been collected by 16 Jul 2011. Note: this consolidated index will be updated only at intervals, as the transcribing of material from the various sources proceeds. More up to date listings of entries from the individual sources can be found by using the links given in the List of Sources.

Volunteers are sought to help with the transcribing of information from those sources listed below that have yet to be dealt with, or which have had only samples transcribed as yet. A set of Guidelines is available describing the transcription rules. For more information please contact Richard Grylls.

This page last updated: 7 Feb 2012 - Brian Randell

Consolidated index last updated: 2 Aug 2011

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