About pre-1858 wills

History of probate in Ireland pre-1858
What pre-1858 testamentary papers for Northern Ireland are available in PRONI?
What pre-1858 testamentary records are searchable on the Name Search database?

History of probate in Ireland pre-1858

From the late 17^th century until 1857 the Church of Ireland (then the State Church) was responsible for testamentary administration.  Precisely how an estate was administered was dependant on a number of factors:

There were two types of ecclesiastical (or church) court:

Diocesan (or consistorial) courts
Each Church of Ireland Diocese had a Diocesan court which administered the estates of persons who had been resident within that diocese and whose property was also within that diocese.

The following dioceses covering Northern Ireland existed:

The Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of Armagh
Administered the estates of persons who had property worth more than £5 located in more than one diocese.

What types of testamentary papers were there?

Grant of probate: this is the official document confirming that the will was proved.

Grant of letters of administration (often abbreviated to admon):  when a person died without making a will (described as intestate) then a grant of letters of administration (admon) was made to appoint administrators to administer the estate of the deceased.

Administration bond:  before letters of administration were issued the courts required the administrator to take out an administration bond, with sureties to make an inventory of the goods of the deceased and to administer faithfully.

Nuncupative will: one made by word of mouth before a sufficient number of witnesses.

What changed in 1858?

When the Probate Act of 1858 was passed the ecclesiastical courts lost their power and testamentary jurisdiction became a civil matter, the responsibility of the Court of Probate.  As a result, most of the records of the Church of Ireland courts were transferred first to the Principal and District Registries of the new Court of Probate and later moved to the Public Record Office of Ireland (Dublin) when it was established in 1867.

What pre-1858 testamentary papers for Northern Ireland are available in PRONI?

Unfortunately, almost all pre-1858 original wills and grants of letters of administration (as well as the administration bonds) were lost when the Public Record Office of Ireland was destroyed in 1922.  

Although most originals have been destroyed, copies of testamentary records or extracts from them survive in a wide variety of sources.  Wills and admons can be found in family papers, landed estate archives, solicitors’ archives and in the archives of the Irish Land Commission and the Land Purchase Commission.  There are also many abstracts in the notebooks of genealogists such as Tenison Goves, HB Swanzy and Philip Crossle who were working in the Public Record Office of Ireland before 1922 and who made copies either by hand or typewritten.  While some wills can be identified in the electronic catalogue, abstracts or extracts contained in genealogists’ notebooks will not be found there.  Many references to individuals will only be found in the pre-1858 wills index.  An index of pre-1858 wills and admons found in these sources is available onsite at PRONI and is also online in Name Search.

Some indexes to diocesan wills, diocesan administration bonds and Prerogative Court wills have also survived.  Although the corresponding documents generally no longer exist, these indexes can provide useful genealogical information and prove that a person died at a certain time.  The following are available at PRONI: