The following announcement was written by the Devon Wills Project:
The Devon Wills Project, a co-operation involving the Devon Family History Society, the Devon Record Office, GENUKI/Devon, and the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, will it is hoped result in the creation of a very important additional resource for Devon genealogists - BUT, this will depend on enough volunteers stepping forward to help out. Hence this message.
The Project has been set up in an attempt to compensate, as far as this is possible, for the disastrous loss of Devon wills that occurred when the Exeter Probate Office was destroyed by fire during World War II.
The aim of the Devon Wills Project is to provide a consolidated index of Devon wills, administrations and inventories, covering (and distinguishing between) original documents, probate copies, transcripts and abstracts. The project involves systematically transcribing information obtained from various "sources", i.e. card indexes, calendars, catalogues, etc. The period covered is in general just up to 1857. (The index will cover only testators, not other named individuals.)
The ultimate aim 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. Eventually this will even include the information (testator's name, parish and date) that is provided in published calendars of the wills that were being held at Exeter prior to the destruction of the Exeter Probate Office though this is, sadly, all the information that now exists for most of these wills.
A lot of work has been going on behind the scenes during the last few months, such as negotiations with the owners of various information resources and the production of trial transcriptions. The result is that the Devon Wills Project website has been set up, and already contains nearly five thousand index entries. It is to be found at:
http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DevonWillsProject/
Please go and look at this website - it is just possible that it already contains information that will be of value to your own personal researches. More importantly, please read the information it provides about our plans for the Project, such as the list of sources we intend to draw on and the transcription guidelines that we have formulated, so that you can determine whether and how you could help. (But please don't ask us questions concerning wills that you can't yet find in the index!)
Volunteers are sought for numerous tasks. These include:
- transcribing from information sources at various record offices and libraries (in particular in Devon and in London, and in LDS Family History Centres worldwide)
- editing of material that we've obtained from elsewhere in digital form
- photographing material in certain archives (in particular in the Devon Record Office in Exeter)
- searching (e.g. using the Internet) for information about Devon wills held in unexpected locations (such as distant county record offices), and
- searching for existing Devon will transcripts and abstracts, e.g. in published journals and books, and in individuals' websites.
Needless to say, the more people who step forward to help with this project, the sooner it will result in a resource that is of value to all Devon genealogists.
The two co-ordinators of the Project are:
- Richard Grylls (in charge of task allocation)
- Brian Randell (in charge of preparation of the index)
Responses to this email, in particular volunteering offers, should be addressed to Richard Grylls at richard.grylls@btinternet.com
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