Author Archives: jenny

Wills made by English and Welsh soldiers during the First World War have been made available online. Poignant personal messages written by tens of thousands of Britain’s fallen First World War soldiers are being made public online for the first time through an innovative project set up by Her Majesty’s Court and Tribunal Service (HMCTS).

HMCTS is releasing the Probate Office’s huge archive of 280,000 soldiers’ wills ahead of next year’s First World War centenary. Members of the public can now search an online database for a will left by a relative who died in battle, or any other soldier they are interested in learning about, and request copies of any available documents.

Every soldier had to complete a will before they headed to the front line so that their estate could be dealt with if they lost their life. They carried a copy with them and many used the will to write letters to their loved ones, expressing their feelings. Many of the historic documents show the physical damage suffered in the war.

The WW1 wills form part of the archive of 41 million records held by the Probate Service since 1858 which HMCTS is currently in the process of making available to the public, in partnership with technology provider Iron Mountain.

Later this year all the records will be made available through a new online service, enabling members of the public to easily request copies of the documents.

Scanned copies of The First World War wills can be ordered online for £6 each.

The Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland)  – ARA –  has signed a deal, on behalf of a large number of archives and schools,  with digital publishing experts brightsolid to publish online for the first time millions of school records from England and Wales.

This will be the first project to be undertaken under the framework of the new National Digitisation Consortium, which comprises up to 120 English and Welsh archives and schools working together to offer records for digitisation.

It is the first time such a large number of bodies will work together to digitise material – in this case their pre-1914 school registers. Once the registers have been scanned and transcribed by brightsolid, they will be made available to search online at leading family history website findmypast.co.uk, which is owned by brightsolid.

The registers span the period 1870-1914 and cover every region of England and Wales. They contain details of particular interest to the family historian, including name of the school and the pupil, their date of birth, year of admission to the school and the name of a parent or guardian. Teachers are also listed and Industrial School registers are included in the collection.