Devon Wills Project

Contents & Search

Before the wartime destruction of the Exeter Probate Registry Sir Oswyn Murray had made abstracts of a number of wills for families in which he had an interest. The abstracts are in a number of volumes in the Westcountry Studies Library and provide a source of information which the LDS has microfilmed in its entirety. (The set of volumes at WSL comprise apparently the only printed set in existence. The main series, which is alphabetically arranged, is in 37 volumes. There are two supplementary volumes, entitled '2nd Series' and '3rd Series', each covering surnames A to Z.)

Murray, as well as studying original wills, made or copied abstracts from a number of secondary sources, which he cited under such abstracts. Among the sources he used was Richard Lane's "Genealogical and Historical Collections, Devonshire", c.1850, a manuscript volume now held at the Westcountry Studies Library. This includes brief abstracts of some 60 Calmady, Pollexfen, Gayer, Hele, etc., wills.

Many of the wills were proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC). These wills are available on-line from The National Archives and on a set of twenty films from the LDS. (Most admons contain no more family information than the abstract and before 1733 admons were usually in Latin.) PCC and Nuncupative wills are noted as such. The latter were made orally and written down later by the witnesses.

To obtain information about the possibility of viewing the documents listed, photographing them or acquiring photocopies of them by post, you should contact the Westcountry Studies Library directly. Alternatively, the LDS films can be ordered for viewing at any LDS Family History Centre. (The table below should assist users to identify which LDS film(s) to order.)

Note: Two particular problems confront researchers who are searching for a Murray will abstract. Firstly, the thirty nine volumes of Murray abstracts contain no page numbers at all, so the only clear reference we can provide is the number of the volume in which the abstract is to be found. Secondly, because spelling was very flexible in earlier times, Murray very sensibly grouped together the wills and admons of people with similar sounding surnames. Thus testators and intestates are not presented in exact alphabetical order in his volumes. However, in our index the testators and intestates are in strict alphabetical order, so variant spellings of a surname are often going to appear in our index some distance away from the more 'standard' spelling. Some lateral thinking may be required both to determine whether your ancestor's will is among the Murray Abstracts and then to locate it in one of his volumes.