I find it totally amazing that I can now gaze upon the image of an old will, dating back almost 400 years to the year 1630, and see the mark made (in lieu of signature) by Terry's 10 times Great-Grandfather John Boorman, who was a broadweaver living in Cranbrook, Kent, England. And what an attractive mark it is, as you can see below from a snippet of the image. His mark is also more creative than some I've seen, as they are often just an "X" or a ragged letter such as "T" for Thomas. But in this case it is a curved number sign (or "hashtag" in modern parlance) with a dot in the centre. To my mind this indicates he had a strong character and sense of self . His will has certainly added dimension to this distant ancestor's life and times.
The above snippet from John Boorman's 1630 will is in English (believe it or not) and reads:
… overseere to this my Laste will for to goy ... [guide and assiste] …
… Conclude the Daye and yeare above writen …
the marke [ # ] of John Bowrman
I also learned from this will that John left 5 shillings to his son Alixander, bed and bedding and the residue of the estate to his son Edward (who was also the Executor of the will), livestock (including a heifer named Budd?) to his son William, household items (including a "Calldorn" or cauldron) to his daughter Elizabeth Martyne, and the use of his home for the duration of his lease to his daughter Judeth Appse. Bequeaths were also made to grandsons William Appse and Richard Appse. His "brother Richard Turke" (a brother-in-law) was listed as the Overseer (to guide and assist the Executor). The names of Richard Cockerell and Thomas Ramesberye are also mentioned but I am unsure of their exact relationship, as not all we easy to decipher. Certainly a lot of useful information was crammed into one handwritten page!
Added information inserted 27 Sept 2014: |  The above snippet from the 1570 will says: |
Learning to read the old English handwriting, with its variations in penmanship, letter formation, spelling and language, has been only part of the challenge. First one has to find the wills and get access to the images, and for that I had a LOT of help thanks to a cousin in Utah. Not all of our ancestors wrote wills and even fewer of the wills and probate records have survived. Wills that far back were probated by a variety of church courts. To find out where to look, there are some good resource lists and explanations on this subject elsewhere online, particularly on England's National Archives site.
Until recently I didn't realize that some indexes and even images of wills can be found online on different sites. For instance, some Kent wills (including those probated the Court of the Archdeaconry of Canterbury) have been indexed and are now listed on the Canterbury Probate Records site. The National Archives site also allows you to search for wills processed by Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC). These and other indexes allow you to identify the existence of wills that might belong to your ancestors, but without reading the whole will or existing extracts or summaries, you can't know if you've found the right one. Even after reading the wills (where you hopefully find the names of relatives, friends and witnesses as well as more specific dates and locations), you will likely need to find other collaborative information sources to ensure you are adding the right people to your tree.
So how do you find the images online of the complete wills? One source is the LDS Family Search site, an excellent free resource that I've used for years with great success. Their data collections, indexes, and family trees continue to grow at a fast rate. This includes collections that have been scanned but not yet indexed (so you can't yet search by name). Sometimes the images are available for browsing, which can be a bit tedious, but you can often zero in on a targeted place and/or date, for instance, to shorten your search. Some of these image collections can be accessed at home (sometimes requiring you to log in using your free login at familysearch.org), but sometimes you must go to your local LDS Family History Centre (FHC) and use one of their computers to access the images there (no login required). Such is the case with Kent wills and probate records. The method of access depends, I think, on the type of licensing agreement they have with the collection's source repository, some being more restrictive than others. But it is really worth the trouble if you end up with a new family treasure!
To find more information on the Family Search collections and possible availability of un-indexed images, you need to become more familiar with their extensive Family Search catalog system, a vast matrix of interconnected collections, subjects, titles, and places. If you don't get positive results when searching one particular way, try searching using different criteria. Remember that the images are attached to specific collections, but not to every collection that might be related to the same place and/or subject. I know first hand that finding such images can be tricky, even when knowing that specific images exist. I probably wouldn't have found these Kent wills on my own without being led through the labyrinth of links the first time by a more knowledgeable researcher. So I'm "paying it forward". If you're interested in Kent wills, here's the link to the "England, Kent, Wills and Probate, 1440-1881" collection, which then links to the associated images. Remember that you must go a LDS Family History Centre (as I did this summer) to access images in this collection.
So I will continue to explore these old Kent wills in the hopes of pushing our Boorman tree back even further or expand it sideways in the search of more distant cousins.
Until recently I didn't realize that some indexes and even images of wills can be found online on different sites. For instance, some Kent wills (including those probated the Court of the Archdeaconry of Canterbury) have been indexed and are now listed on the Canterbury Probate Records site. The National Archives site also allows you to search for wills processed by Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC). These and other indexes allow you to identify the existence of wills that might belong to your ancestors, but without reading the whole will or existing extracts or summaries, you can't know if you've found the right one. Even after reading the wills (where you hopefully find the names of relatives, friends and witnesses as well as more specific dates and locations), you will likely need to find other collaborative information sources to ensure you are adding the right people to your tree.
So how do you find the images online of the complete wills? One source is the LDS Family Search site, an excellent free resource that I've used for years with great success. Their data collections, indexes, and family trees continue to grow at a fast rate. This includes collections that have been scanned but not yet indexed (so you can't yet search by name). Sometimes the images are available for browsing, which can be a bit tedious, but you can often zero in on a targeted place and/or date, for instance, to shorten your search. Some of these image collections can be accessed at home (sometimes requiring you to log in using your free login at familysearch.org), but sometimes you must go to your local LDS Family History Centre (FHC) and use one of their computers to access the images there (no login required). Such is the case with Kent wills and probate records. The method of access depends, I think, on the type of licensing agreement they have with the collection's source repository, some being more restrictive than others. But it is really worth the trouble if you end up with a new family treasure!
To find more information on the Family Search collections and possible availability of un-indexed images, you need to become more familiar with their extensive Family Search catalog system, a vast matrix of interconnected collections, subjects, titles, and places. If you don't get positive results when searching one particular way, try searching using different criteria. Remember that the images are attached to specific collections, but not to every collection that might be related to the same place and/or subject. I know first hand that finding such images can be tricky, even when knowing that specific images exist. I probably wouldn't have found these Kent wills on my own without being led through the labyrinth of links the first time by a more knowledgeable researcher. So I'm "paying it forward". If you're interested in Kent wills, here's the link to the "England, Kent, Wills and Probate, 1440-1881" collection, which then links to the associated images. Remember that you must go a LDS Family History Centre (as I did this summer) to access images in this collection.
So I will continue to explore these old Kent wills in the hopes of pushing our Boorman tree back even further or expand it sideways in the search of more distant cousins.
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