Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

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s1nead
Posts: 93
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 4:33 pm
Location: San Diego

Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by s1nead » Fri Oct 17, 2014 5:03 am

I have had NO success searching the Calendar of Wills & Adminstration at

http://www.willcalendars.nationalarchiv ... /index.jsp

Absolutely NO results, even though I have exact dates, names and places of death.

My family was very prominent in Clare (Gentry Solicitor, Landed Proprietors, Manager of the Bank of Ireland, numerous entries in Griffith's, etc) so I know there were assets ....

Are there any "tricks" to this search?

What could I be doing wrong?

I'd appreciate ANY insights, please.....

Thanks!!
Susan in San Diego
Last edited by s1nead on Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Lucille
Posts: 144
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 6:59 pm

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by Lucille » Fri Oct 17, 2014 12:24 pm

Hi Sinead

By putting in just 'Reilly' in Clare has turned up your Patrick Edward and Henry Patrick in 1872. Sometimes less is more, and in fact there were very few Reillys. 'Milward' only turned up Rosalie - the Bank manager John may not have left a will - it wasn't obligatory, though I would have thought he would have done "the right thing"!

Hope that helps

Lucille

s1nead
Posts: 93
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 4:33 pm
Location: San Diego

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by s1nead » Fri Oct 17, 2014 5:38 pm

Thank you for checking on that for me, Lucille .....

I did find that information .............

Patrick Edward was my great great grandfather ......

But, why doesn't his son's (Henry Patrick) Will come up? HP died in 1894...... and he was a Solicitor and owned over 900 acres ..... so he had assets......

And, his wife (my great grandmother, who was a Milward) died 10 years later (1904)....... but no info comes up under her name, either .......

I found that ONE Milward entry, too ~ But, the Milwards were prominent bankers and, according to Griffiths, owned LOTS of property.......

The patriarch, John Harnett Milward, died in 1870 ~ NO entry??

You might have a point about his choice to die in testate, but ~ he was a businessman and the Manager of the National Bank of Ireland with 8 surviving children .....

Unless he was angry with his children ~ 7 had emigrated before he died ....

I don't know ........

And ~

Back to the Reillys ~ I know my grandfather received an inheritance ...... his mother died in 1904 ~ leaving him with his banker cousin Guardians in Dublin. He hated living there and emigrated to New York in 1908.......

But, he received monthy checks from Ireland throughout the Depression and into the 1950s........but I've even checked the Calendar of Wills of England for his mother's Will and nothing turns up ......

This is from the Landed Estates Database:

• Reilly (Ennistymon) - In the 1870s Henry P. Reilly of Ennistymon, county Clare is recorded as the owner of 695 acres in the return of landowners of more than one acre dated 1876 and of 989 acres by Hussey de Burgh in his book published 1878. In 1906 the representatives of Henry P. Reilly held 4 acres of untenanted land in the townland of Ballyea South, rural district of Ennistimon.
This sentence refers to my grandfather who was an orphaned, only child in 1906: ".....In 1906 the representatives of Henry P. Reilly held 4 acres of untenanted land in the townland of Ballyea South, rural district of Ennistimon ......"

What do you think?

Is there any other way to search the "Calendar of Wills" besides by the name of the deceased person?

I don't know how else to search for this information .......

:cry:

But ~ I am SURE it is somewhere .....

Thanks for reading this!

Susan
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pj.culligan
Posts: 49
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Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by pj.culligan » Fri Oct 17, 2014 8:46 pm

Have you tried checking the "Closed Books" at the Land valuation Office in Dublin. That shows the transfers of Land from the 1840's to the 1970's I think. Check out their website at www.valoffice.ie

s1nead
Posts: 93
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 4:33 pm
Location: San Diego

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by s1nead » Fri Oct 17, 2014 9:10 pm

Hmmmmmmmmmm

No ~ I have not checked "Closed Books" but will do that today!!

Thanks!!

s1nead
Posts: 93
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 4:33 pm
Location: San Diego

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by s1nead » Sat Oct 18, 2014 4:29 am

Thanks for your suggestion, PJ .....
I checked out that page but, right now, only Northern Ireland's records are ready ....
Meybe in a few months?

Lucille
Posts: 144
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 6:59 pm

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by Lucille » Sat Oct 18, 2014 5:20 pm

Hi Sinead

Reading the notice of JH Milward's death there is a definite suggestion that he died rather suddenly, and I think that wills were often not written much in advance, as is usually done now. I have just also found a reference to him

Nenagh Guardian 11 January 1871
A public subscription is being organised in behalf of the widow and family of the late Manager, Mr J.H. Milward, of the National Bank of Ennis.

Nenagh is the county town of Tipperary, an adjoining county to Clare, and the Nenagh Guardian often carried items of news from Clare

However, the Irish Times on Dec 19, says that he died "after a long and tedious illness." It's a Dublin paper though, so did they really know?

Lucille

pj.culligan
Posts: 49
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2010 2:43 pm

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by pj.culligan » Sat Oct 18, 2014 7:10 pm

Sinead, the records are available for the whole of the Irish republic. If you e-mail the valuation office and ask them to research the townland in which your ancestors had land then for a fee of 25 euro they will send you copies of the closed books for that townland.

mgallery
Posts: 201
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2012 6:27 pm

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by mgallery » Sun Oct 19, 2014 12:05 am

For one family I am researching a distant cousin collected copies of wills in early 1900s. For some well off relatives they made wills, the wills were honoured but never proved. Also in many cases people gave their children and grandchildren their inheritances while they were still alive. You dont always get a proved will in the calendar of wills even where someone was well off.

s1nead
Posts: 93
Joined: Fri Aug 24, 2012 4:33 pm
Location: San Diego

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by s1nead » Sun Oct 19, 2014 12:31 am

Thank you ALL for your interest and information!

I can understand the truth in everything you have said .....

However, in the case of my Great Grandfather, Henry Patrick Reilly, who was a Solicitor and who in 1870 was listed owning over 900 acres, I have seen his Will.

In 1967, my grandmother gave it to my father (whose sole heir father had died in 1960) and I remember reading it.

I was only 17 at the time but from what I remember, it consisted of dozens of pages and it included an inventory of every piece of property that he owned at his death.

My father was SHOCKED at what he was reading ....... there was property all over Ireland, including some island that had been turned into an amusement park.

There were also properties leased by him that belonged to the infamous Lord Lucan.

My grandfather had disdained this family wealth ...... he thought of it as "blood money"....... he was ashamed that his family were land agents .....

He didn't manage these properties at all and eventually everything reverted back to the government because he was an absentee landlord.

Sad that the legacy of two generations was gone.....

I am trying to get my sister to send me a copy of that Will (1894)...... I'll share that when I get it...

My point is ~ WHY can't I find an entry for the Will of Henry Patrick Reilly when I know it exists?

Also, when/if I do find its entry in the Calendar of Wills, will that entry consist of a brief synopsis of the Will or will it provide the details of the original?

Basically, I do not understand why these records are so difficult to uncover....

I'm still interested in your thoughts & insights..... think I'll repost the above information on its own .... maybe new readers will see it.

Thanks again!!

Susan

mgallery
Posts: 201
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Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by mgallery » Sun Oct 19, 2014 2:11 pm

I dont know Sinead but I have also seen a copy of a will that was never actually proved and so would not be in the calendar. It was honoured.

That is what I was talking about

Margaret

s1nead
Posts: 93
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Location: San Diego

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by s1nead » Mon Oct 20, 2014 12:41 am

What does "honoured" mean?

Legitimate?

If so, the Will I saw was legitimate ..... my grandfather inherited everything in it ......

So ~ when a Will entry is found in the Calendar ~ is that ALL we can see?

Just those few lines of synopsis?

We can't see the entire document?

If so, that's disappointing .....

mgallery
Posts: 201
Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2012 6:27 pm

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by mgallery » Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:15 pm

What I mean is the family honoured the will by paying the bequests but the will was never proved and would never have ended up in the calendar of wills

s1nead
Posts: 93
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Location: San Diego

Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by s1nead » Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:49 pm

Thank you!
I had never heard that term.

pwaldron
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Re: Calendar of Wills Search Help, Please

Post by pwaldron » Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:08 pm

For a few tricks, see
http://www.cigo.ie/httpwww.cigo.iewills.html

I prefer to search by just editing this URL, which returns hits 100-per-page:
http://www.willcalendars.nationalarchiv ... yForename=

Wildcards (*) can be used.

If the will that you have seen is the original (with original signatures of the testator and witnesses), then you can be certain that it was never proved. It could of course be that the will still in family hands was revoked by a later will which was proved.

The Calendars include both wills and administrations, so those with property will normally be included, whether or not they made wills.

The Calendars do not include the text of wills, which must be consulted at the National Archives if they survived the 1922 fire in the Public Records Office. Probate materials are generally stored off-site at the Four Courts, so 24 hours notice must be given before they can be consulted.

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