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Surviving Exeter wills

Posted by Adie on 24/7/2022, 10:57 pm

I have been having great difficulty figuring out how to find out how to find out where to find which Besley wills have survived the blitz and how to go about ordering these if they do still exist. Difficult being in Southern Hemisphere. I already have the ones from Canterbury.cheers Adie. Genealogy website AdeinNelson.com

Re: Surviving Exeter wills

Posted by Roger Donne on 26/7/2022, 7:49 pm, in reply to "Surviving Exeter wills"

Presumably you have searched the Discovery catalogue at The National Archives, at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk ? Putting in a search term like 'besley will devon' brings up 41 entries including Besley wills held at the Devon Archives and Local Studies Service (South West Heritage Trust) at Exeter, and as well as the PCC wills which you already have. Those listed seem to be from the Inland Revenue Wills Series,1812-1857, and as far as I can remember are available on microfiche in the search room. I guess you would be interested in the copying service -details available on the website - but unfortunately that is likely to be expensive and slow.

Re: Surviving Exeter wills

Posted by Art on 27/7/2022, 5:57 pm, in reply to "Re: Surviving Exeter wills"

The Devon Inland Revenue Wills are freely available (but only in their raw form) on Familysearch, but not obviously found.
Best way to get to them is to google Devon Wills Familysearch, then choose Wills for Diocese of Exeter 1812 - 1857. Clicking on the camera icon for Beck to Born, the Besley Wills are B756 to B772 images 683 to 763

Re: Surviving Exeter wills

Posted by Terry on 25/7/2022, 8:59 am, in reply to "Surviving Exeter wills"

Suggest you try https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DEV/DevonWillsProject

Re: Surviving Exeter wills

Posted by Adie on 28/7/2022, 7:51 am, in reply to "Re: Surviving Exeter wills"

Wow - thank you guys - a whole new area of research opening up. The early wills that were proved in Canterterbury have been so helpful I'm hoping that other ones will fill in the rest of the gaps where available. I do wish the writers of the wills all wrote in a tidier hand. Transcribing some of them is rather challenging! Cheers Adie

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