Help searching Inheritance Disputes Index (once logged in)
| Search by |
You can search by:
testator name (surname and forename)
any surname which may appear in the index records (testator, plaintiff or defendant)
year range (for the start of the case)
county (England and Wales) or country where the testator lived.
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| First name, Last name |
If a Testator First Name is entered then the search is on Testators only.
If only a Last Name is entered then all last names - Testators, Defendants and Plaintiffs - are searched. (See Case Details column for names).
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| Abbreviations used in the database records |
(A) = Answer; made by the defendant to points raised by the Plaintiff
(D) = Demurrer; an objection taken by one party to the evidence raised by the other
(I) = Interrogatories; a list of prepared questions
(R) = Replication; submitted by the plaintiff, in response to the defendant's Answer
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| The index records |
The index records provide the following information:
Testator name
Surname and forename(s) of testator with, where shown in the original calendar, rank or title (eg "Sir", "Countess"). In many cases where a woman was widowed, the word "widow" will appear in this field. You can search on the testator's surname and forename.
Location
Location of property in dispute: where several estates were involved, a choice has been made of one of the principal villages, towns, cities or counties. Though the names of locations have been checked in every case, not all have been successfully identified - some place names have been found to be corruptions of spelling, others were estate names, and yet more may be hamlets that have since disappeared: in all these cases the names have been transcribed as given in the original documents. In nearly all cases the county (if in England or Wales) is shown; for locations outside England and Wales the country is given. You can search on county or country. In some cases the property in dispute was located in more than one county and in such cases more than one county name may be shown.
Title of suit
Title of original lawsuit, in format "plaintiff versus defendant, year", for example: Abbott v. Skinner 1659; Weight v. Fisher (A) 1693. The first name is the surname of the first plaintiff in the suit (where there was more than one plaintiff); the second name is the surname of the first defendant (if there was more than one defendant); the year is that when the actions commenced. (Note that the parties to the suit generally do not share the same surname as the testator.)
TNA reference
Identifies the original Chancery Court documents at TNA, Kew.
See The National Archives References
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| NameX |
NameX is a proprietary name-matching tool which allows you to find family records for names which have common variations in spelling or which may have been spelled incorrectly on some records.
Click here for more help.
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