Yorkshire Probate Records added to Ancestry

Ancestry have added Probate Records for part of Yorkshire to the website, these are records held by West Yorkshire Archives.

The collection includes:

Yorkshire Probate Records, 1521-1858

This database contains a collection of wills, letters of administration, and inventories from Yorkshire for the years 1521 through 1858.

The probates currently included in this collection are from the following two court jurisdictions.

Archdeaconry of Richmond

These wills were proved in the Archdeacon’s Consistory Court and survive from the fifteenth century until the establishment of the High Court of Probate in 1858. The Archdeaconry, which in the Middle Ages lay within the Diocese of York, was transferred to Chester in 1541 and then straddled the Pennines. It stretched from the west coast of Lancashire, incorporated parts of Cumberland and Westmorland and extended eastwards into Yorkshire as far as the rivers Wiske and Swale and where it was bounded to north and south by the Tees and the Nidd. Administratively the Archdeaconry was divided into the Western Deaneries of Amounderness, Lonsdale, Furness, Cartmel, Kendal and Copeland, and the Eastern Deaneries of Richmond, Catterick and Boroughbridge.

Peculiar of Knaresborough (Honour Court)

Jurisdiction for this Peculiar included the parishes of:

Knaresborough, Burton Leonard, Farnham, Fewston, Great Ouseburn, Hampsthwaite, Pannal, South Stainley with Cayton and Staveley.

The townships of Castley, Clint, Coneythorpe, Dunkeswick, Low and High Harrogate, Haverah Park, Killinghall, Lindley, Little Ribston, Plompton, Rigton, Stainburn, Swindon and Weeton.

With thanks to Ancestry.co.uk