Prerogative & Exchequer Courts of York Probate Index 1842-1858
What do these records tell you?
The Prerogative & Exchequer Court of York Probate Index gives: The original documents provide a great deal of valuable information to the family historian and copies of these can be ordered online via British Origins.


The Prerogative & Exchequer Courts of York
Prior to 1858, wills were proved in an ecclesiastical court. Which court dealt with a particular will depended on where property was held.

Parishes of the Church of England were grouped into archdeaconries, and a group of archdeaconries formed a diocese (ie the area of a bishop's jurisdiction). Each diocese belonged either to the ecclesiastical province of York or of Canterbury.  The province of York had jurisdiction in the counties of Cheshire, Cumberland, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Westmorland and Yorkshire; Canterbury had jurisdiction over the rest of England and Wales.

If a person's property lay wholly within one archdeaconry, the will was generally proved in that archdeacon's court.  But if property worth £5 or more were owned elsewhere the will would be proved in a higher court, that of a bishop or archbishop. 

The Prerogative Court of York
If the property were owned in more than one diocese, the will would be proved in one of the two archbishops' prerogative courts.  If the property were all within the province of York, probate would be dealt with by the Prerogative Court of York (PCY), otherwise by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC).  So if property were owned in both provinces, probate was dealt with by PCC, the senior court.

The Exchequer Court of York
The Exchequer Court exercised jurisdiction over lay men and unbeneficed clergy (that is who were not rectors or vicars) with goods in the diocese of York only.


The Prerogative & Exchequer Court of York Probate Indexes
The Origins Network in association with the Borthwick Institute for Archives are completing the computerisation of the indexes to the Prerogative & Exchequer Court of York probate material; only the Medieval part (1267-1500) of these indexes had previously been computerised. This work is being done in reverse chronological order, starting from 1858. The index records covering 50,000 grants of probate for the period September 1842 to January 1858 are now available online exclusively on British Origins. About two thirds of the wills were proved in the Prerogative Court. This index complements the indexes to the York Medieval and York Peculiars probate material.

All the original documents (with very few exceptions) are held by the Borthwick Institute.

Index details
The Prerogative & Exchequer Court of York Probate Index contains the following fields: You can search on last name, first name, county/country and year range. The “county” search field allows you to select the county – or country - of interest via a “drop-down” list. Although 70% of the records relate to Yorkshire, people from all over the British Isles and abroad had property in the Province of York, and had their wills proved in the Prerogative or Exchequer Court of York.

Currently the index only holds records for wills proved in the period Sep 1853 to Jan 1858. New records will be added regularly, in reverse chronological order

Examples of index records

Last name First name Place County Court Doc.Type Date Source ref. Index ref. Note
COOK ROBERT   AT SEA P Will 1857, MAY vol.244, f.589 2222/4 Yes
COOK ROBERT LEITH, MIDLOTHIAN SCOTLAND P Will 1857, MAY vol.244, f.589 2222/4 Yes
COOK ROBERT SEATON ROSS YORKSHIRE P Will 1857, JAN vol.243, f.198 2217/18  
COOK ROBINSON SKELTON IN CLEVELAND YORKSHIRE E Will 1856, JAN vol.239A, f.213r 2204/7  
COOKE ANN SOUTH COLLINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE P Admon 1857, JUL vol.245, f. 2225/3  
COOKE CATHERINE DONCASTER YORKSHIRE E Admon & will 1856, SEP vol.241, f.388r 2213/10  
COOKE WILLIAM CAMBRAY FRANCE P Will 1854, NOV vol.234, f.152 2952/4  
COOKE WILLIAM NOTTINGHAM NOTTINGHAMSHIRE P Will 1854, NOV vol.234, f.152 2952/4  
COOKE WILLIAM SNENTON NOTTINGHAMSHIRE P Will 1854, NOV vol.234, f.152 2952/4  

Each index entry has two buttons on the right, one to allow display of the image of the original index page, the other to allow online ordering of a copy of the source document. We recommend that you view the original index entries, for these often contain extra information which is not in the computerised index and which may help you decide whether to order copies of the documents.

Explanation of index fields
Note: To help avoid confusion, we use the term “index record” when referring to the present computerised index, and “index entry” when referring to the original, paper-based, indexes.

The Place is usually that where the testator dies, but often more than one place where the person had lived is shown in the original entry, as in the example below. While over 70% of the documents relate to persons who died in Yorkshire, there are testators from all over the British Isles and overseas; 10% of the testators are from Nottinghamshire. In the great majority of cases the town and/or parish where the testator was living at the time of death is given.

County This field shows the country, if the Place is not in England or Wales.

Court The abbreviations “P” or “E” in this field indicate that the will was proved in the Prerogative or Exchequer Court, respectively.

Document type Though mostly the original documents are wills, other types of documents may be available, as shown in the table below:

Document type Description
Will Wills may have attached codicils
Admon Administration. If a person died without leaving a will, someone (usually a relative) could apply to the probate court for a grant of administration, which would allow them to deal with the estate.
Admon 2 Second administration
Codicil A separate codicil to a will, ie a codicil which is not attached to a will. (rare)
Curation Guardianship over minors under 21 but over 14 for boys or 12 for girls. The guardian was chosen by the minor.
Tuition Tuition agreement. Relates to guardianship over minors under 14 (boys) or 12 (girls). The guardian was chosen by the court.
2nd probate record of a second probate for the estate
Renunciation A document from one or more of the executors, or prospective administrators, renouncing their executorship or right to administer. (rare)

There is frequently more than one document available. If you order a hard copy, you will receive copies of all documents which are available. All wills indexed currently in the Prerogative & Exchequer Court of York Probate Index are in English.

Date This is the date when probate was granted, which could be some considerable time after death.

Source reference This reference is mainly of use to the Borthwick Insitute, for locating the original documents. “vol.” gives the volume number, and “f.” the folio number (not always present in the electronic index). The letter “r” or “v” after a folio number refers to the recto or verso of the folio.

Index reference The original indexes are held by date (month and year) then alphabetical order (but only by initial letter of the surname). (Example index page.) This is a unique reference to the page containing the original index entries (the part before the slash), and to the sequential position of the entry within the page (the number after the slash). The original index volumes contain entries by alphabetical order (not sorted within letter of the alphabet) and by date. So searching these for, for example, a will left by John Smith sometime between 1854 and 1857 could be very time consuming; there are over 40 relevant index entries, contained in over a dozen volumes. But with the electronic index you can find these entries immediately.

The complete index reference allows you to identify index records which relate to the same probate. So considering the first two entries in the table above, for Robert Cook, we can see that the Index Ref. (2222/4) is the same in both cases, so it is the same Robert Cook and the same probate documents which are referenced. The “/4” shows that the relevant index entry is fourth on the page, making it easy to find the original index entry on the image. The last three entries in the table are also for the same person, who has three places mentioned in the original entry, as you can see here.

Example 1. This shows that William Cooke died at Snenton, Nottinghamshire, having previously lived in Nottingham and before that at Cambray (modern Cambrai) in France. The will was proved in November 1854. The last three index records shown in the table above all relate to this person.

Index note present In many original index entries there are marginal notes present, which may be helpful to researchers. If such a note is present it wil be indicated by a “Yes” in this field. The notes are most often in the right hand margin bu can also appear in the left margin. Example 2 shows the kind of information which may be present.

Example 2. These two successive entries both contain marginal notes. The first refers to a former grant [of probate] in February 1832 – the present reference is to a grant in January 1855. The second refers to a later administration in September 1907, at London (by this time probate was granted by the civil courts), of goods not administered under the present grant of administration (“Adbn”).

Multiple names in original index entries
The original index entries sometimes contain names of people other than the testator. These may be of the widow or, in the case of entries referring to curation or tuition agreements, to the testators children. All names appearing in the original indexes have been captured for the present index.

Example 3. In this case index records have been created both for Sarah Bancroft, for John Bancroft, and also for Sarah Burton.

Example 4. In this case, there are index records for Robert James Greenlees, and also for each of the children, Sam, Matthew, Alice and Elizabeth.

Interpretating the original index entries
As mentioned above, the original index entries are recorded by date, and the date appear only at the start of a block (which may occupy more than one page) of entries for surname beginning with a specific letter of the alphabet. So the probate date does not appear against each entry.

The parish is usually – but far from always given – and can be identified by a preceding abbreviation “P.”. If the will was proved in the Prerogative Court, the abbeviation “Prog.” will appear on the right, otherwise probate was granted in the Exchequer Court.

The right margin contains abbreviations for the types of document and type of probate; abbreviations which may appear are listed in the table. The number which appears is an indication of the value of the estate (which should not be relied upon), eg 300L – “L” = pounds sterling.

Nottinghamshire wills proved in the Exchequer Court of York
Until 1837 Nottinghamshire was part of the diocese of York, and wills were proved at York. Though all original probate records relating to Nottinghamshire proved in the Prerogative Court of York remain at the Borthwick, though those proved in the Exchequer Court have now been transferred to Nottinghamshire Archives. However, registered copies of these Exchequer Court wills remain at the Borthwick, so you can order hard copies of all wills which relate to Nottinghamshire, whether proved in the Exchequer or Prerogative Court, but not other documents. In the index presently (ie covering Sep 1853 to Jan 1858) there are references to 1628 grants of probate relating to Nottinghamshire, of which 600 were granted by the Exchequer Court; in 168 of these cases there is no will and so the documents are not available at the Borthwick. However, the Borthwick can supply the administration entry for these grants, which though fairly brief, do give the names of the executors. If ordering documents for grants relating to Nottinghamshire, we recommend you check whether probate was granted in the Exchequer Court, and then whether the will is included in the documents. If you place an order for a “Nottinghamshire” documents where there is no will, and where probate was granted by the Exchequer Court, be aware that you will receive only a copy of the administration entry from the probate act book.


Ordering hard copies of original documents
You can order a hard copy of the document(s) referred to in any index record simply by clicking of the "Add to cart" button alongside each record. The cost of each hard copy document, including first class or airmail postage, is £10. (NB If there is more than one document referred to you will receive copies of each.)


Other "York Series" Probate Indexes
All the indexes to probate documents held at the Borthwick Institute will become available online on British Origins. In addition to the present indexes to the Prerogative & Exchequer Courts, indexes to the Medieval probate records of these courts, and to the Peculiar Courts are also online.


See also:  Prerogative & Exchequer Courts of York Probate Index - Abbreviations
  Other York Indexes: York Medieval Probate Index 1267-1500
  Other York Indexes: York Peculiars Index 1383-1883
  About the Borthwick Institute for Archives
  About Church Courts
  Help on Searching - Prerogative & Exchequer Courts of York Probate Index
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The York Series of Probate Indexes are presented in
association with the Borthwick Institute for Archives.