Wills are among PRONI’s most valued records when it comes to researching family and local history. Before searching our Will Calendar Application or ordering out wills on-site at PRONI, the below guide can provide important historical context and information about our holdings.
For further guidance, you can also consult our printable information leaflet on wills and probate.
Wills
A will is more properly called a ‘Last Will and Testament’ and is a legal document in which a person records their last wishes before they die and describes the rights of others over their property after their death. They often deal with the distribution of land, property, money, furniture and stock.
Although anyone can make a will, provided they are of sound mind, only a small part of the population in the 19th century did so. Married women rarely made a will before 1882.
Terms
While consulting wills, it is useful to familiarise yourself with the below terms:
- Beneficiaries - those who are left goods and property in a will.
- Testator - the person making the will and who signs it personally or has it signed by someone in their presence and at their direction.
- Executor(s) – the person(s) appointed to carry out the wishes of the testator as laid down in the will.
- Codicils – amendments to the will which must be separately dated and attested in the same way as a will.
Admons and Probate
Admons
As well as Wills, you will come across ‘letters of administration' and ‘letters of administration with will annexed’; sometimes called ‘admons’.
A grant of ‘letters of administration with will annexed’ is issued where:
- The will did not specify any executors.
- The executor(s) were unable to carry out the terms of the will, renounced their intention to do so, or they had died.
Probate
'Probate' is a term commonly used when talking about the right to deal with a deceased person's affairs.
A will only becomes legally effective after the testator dies and a court issues a grant of probate. The grant of probate authenticates the will and gives the executors the power to administer the estate. Probate can take weeks, months or even years.
If a person dies without making a will, they are described as ‘intestate’. In this case, the court can grant ‘letters of administration’ to administer their estate.
Since 1858, these grants—both probate and administration—have been handled by the main and district registries of the Probate Court.
Pre-1858
Before 1858, the Church of Ireland was responsible for granting admons and probate through the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of Armagh, and the consistorial courts in each diocese. However, in 1857, the Court of Probate and Letters of Administration Act (Ireland), probate matters were transferred from the ecclesiastical courts to the civil courts.
You can search indexes to pre-1858 Wills using our Name Search application.
1858 onwards
The Prerogative Court and the ecclesiastical courts were replaced by the principal registry in Dublin and a number of district registries of the Probate Court.
Applications for grant of probate or letters of administration could be made at the Principal Probate Registry in all cases. However, applications could also be made at a district registry where the deceased had a fixed place of residence.
The district registries covering what is now Northern Ireland were those for Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry.
From 1858 to 1921:
- The Belfast District Registry covered counties Antrim and Down
- The Londonderry District Registry covered counties Donegal, Londonderry and the baronies of Strabane and Omagh in County Tyrone for the same period.
- The Armagh Registry covered testators living in counties Armagh, Fermanagh, Louth, Monaghan and Tyrone (except for the baronies of Strabane and Omagh in County Tyrone).
The Armagh Registry was abolished in 1921 following the partition of Ireland.
Useful information in wills
Information commonly found in wills includes:
- the name, address and occupation of the testator
- the names of the beneficiaries (and sometimes their address and occupation)
- details of the property and goods of the testator
- the names of the executors and witnesses to the will (who may also be related to the testator)
- the date when the will was made
Wills can be an incredibly useful source while researching your family and local history. Because beneficiaries are nearly always relatives of the testator (and executors can often be relatives as well), you can often extract many family details from a will. Wills can also give a picture of a family and how they lived, as well as evidence of their wealth and social status. Additionally, wills can sometimes reflect various aspects of the social and economic history of Northern Ireland.
Using will calendars online and in PRONI
From 1858 onwards, grants of probate and letters of administration were indexed in calendars of wills and administrations. These calendars were published annually and ordered alphabetically by name of the deceased.
Our Will Calendar Application provides a fully searchable index to the will calendar entries for the three district probate registries of Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry. You can also view the entire will calendar entry for each successful search.
The database only covers the period 1858-1965, however you can access the physical calendars from 1858-2009 on-site at PRONI.
Copies of wills in PRONI
Unfortunately, the original wills of the Principal Registry up to 1904 and of the district registries up to 1899 were lost in 1922 when the Public Record Office of Ireland in Dublin was destroyed in the Irish Civil War.
Luckily, copies of wills that were made by the district registries survived as they had not yet been transferred to the Public Record Office of Ireland. These copies of wills were written into large volumes – those for the district registries of Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry are held in PRONI.
The contents of these volumes have been digitised and are also available to view in our Will Calendar application.