Surrey Probate Records

For an explantion of probate records in England, click here.

Getting Started
Probate is the legal court process by which the estate of a deceased person is distributed to his/her heirs.

In order to find a probate record for your ancestor in Kent, you must answer two questions:


 * 1) When did your ancestor die?
 * 2) Where did your ancestor live or own property?

A key date is 1858, when probate authority was taken from the ecclesiatical courts of the Church of England and given to the civil government.


 * If your ancestor died before 1858, his/her probate would have been proven by an ecclesiatical court and it is important to know where he/she lived, as that will determine which courts had jurisdiction.
 * If you know where your ancestor lived before 1858, you should go to the Probate Court Jurisdictions section below to determine what courts had jurisdiction over your ancestor's place of residence.
 * Beginning in 1858, probate authority was vested in the Principal Probate Registry system. For more information, scroll to the Post-1857 Probate Records section at the bottom of the page.

Once you have answered the two questions and determined the courts, look for indexes. Indexes will be found on the individual court pages (when you click on a court name) or in the Probate Indexes section below.

Court Jurisdictions
Before 1858, every town and parish in Surrey was under the probate jurisdiction of a primary eccelsiastical court and one or more secondary courts. In order to find the will of a deceased person, you need to know what courts had jurisdiction over the place where he/she lived.

To see a list of Surrey places and the courts that had jurisdiction over them, click on a letter link:

Probate Indexes Online
Before looking for a will, you should search an index.

http://www.originsnetwork.com/help/popup-aboutbo-surrwills.htm

Surrey &amp; South London Will Abstracts1470-1856 This extraordinary collection is one of the most valuable on British Origins. It contains fully indexed abstracts of every Surrey will known to still exist, over 28,000 of them, dating from the 15th to 19th centuries; nearly all the originals are held at the London Metropolitan Archives.

The abstracts include all personal names (testator, beneficiaries, executors, witnesses, overseers, and others) with their relationships, place names, occupations, monetary and other bequests, and descriptions of lands. The indexes include the names of every person mentioned - over a half of a million names - places mentioned (many outside Surrey), subjects (eg occupations) mentioned in the wills, and of dates.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~engsurry/

The Surrey Plus Wills Index provides an index to names of all people appearing in the wills of testators residing in the County of Surrey, England (and nine other Counties). Links are provided to transcripts of wills, where available. No guarantee of accuracy can be given, nor any responsibility accepted for any mistakes or omissions. All names and transcripts appearing on this site are the work of individuals, which they have kindly donated. Copyright of each transcript remains with the contributor. Please do not reproduce transcripts in any form, other than for personal use, without permission. Last updated 13 Apr '08: Currently contains 41,362 Names from 2,540 Surrey &amp; 1,099 non-Surrey Wills (BDF-88, BRK-89, BKM-57, HAM-144, KEN-79, MDX-266, NTH-142, OXF-106, SSX-128), 3,314 Transcripts/Extracts with 19 Inventories

Post-1857 Probate Records
Beginning in 1858, the government took over the settlement of estates and all wills are now probated through the Principal Probate Registry system. The system consists of 11 district registry offices and 18 sub-district registries, located throughout England and Wales, and the principal registry office located in London. The records are available through the office of Her Majesty's Courts Service. To learn more, go to the HMCS website.

A country-wide surname index to the records is available, so it is much easier to look for post-1857 wills. The indexes for 1858-1957 and the records for 1858-1925 are available on microfilm at the Family History Library.