To find a specific will from the Southern half of the UK up to 1858, these should be found at the National Archives. They have the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and can be searched and downloaded to your computer at a cost of 3.50 pounds Sterling per will.

Records for the Prerogative Court of York are to be found at the Borthwick Institute of the University of York.

Records of the minor Probate Courts will be found at the County Record offices or other local archives. As the York and Canterbury courts usually dealt with the very wealthy, I would think that most people would be able to find the details they are looking for at the minor probate courts. You can find which details are held where by looking at the Familia Website.

You may also want to look at A2A [Access to Archives] database to see if they have a record of the will you are looking for.

For Wales, you would need to see the National Library of Wales, they hold original Welsh probates up to 1858. They also hold volumes of copy wills after 1858 and up to 1940.

WILLS AFTER 1858

iIf you know that probate was granted later than January 1, 1858 then you should look for information at the Courts Service website. There is a section called ‘Probate Records and Family History’. You can find an index to wills from 1858 to 1943 available on microfiche at The National Archives.

SCOTLAND

If you are looking for a will anywhere from the 16th century up to 1991 then you should be looking at the National Archives of Scotland. You can have access to a factsheet on their website called ‘Wills and Testaments’.

From the 16th century up to 1901 you can do your search for your ancestors Will on ‘Scotlands People – The Scottish Government’ genealogical site. It will cost you 5 pounds Sterling to download the will which will be digitised, and a colour image of the original. SCAN will show you examples of wills from 1514 to 1901 to tempt you.

They also provide a very useful Handwriting Guide [I would think for the Old English style writing] which can be difficult to decipher.

IRELAND

Although due to the fire in 1922 in the Dublin record office, wills which were proved before 1858 were destroyed, there are however, bound printed and manuscripted indexes to the pre-1858 diocesan wills. Also administrations and administration bonds as well as indexes to many of the prerogative wills. [Vicar's Index to Prerogative Wills, 1536-1810] has survived.

Copies of these indexes are available to see in the Public Search Room at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland [PRONI].

Copies of wills which were destroyed can often be found elsewhere, for instance, in private collections or in solicitor’s records. You can seek to trace these using the pre-1858 Wills Card Index [also available as a computerised printout, in the Public Search Room at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland [PRONI].

Another area of interest would be small family trees compiled from almost all pre-1858 prerogative wills, and these can be found in the Burke Collection [T/559]. A typescript index is included in the T/559 catalogue.

All of these wills are available to be ordered in the normal way via the computer ordering system at PRONI.

For information on any wills proved in the Republic of Ireland, see the National Archives of Ireland.

It may be thought that just because you bear the same name as appears on certain coats of arms that you have a right to display them, this may not be the case.

A coat of arms belongs to the person who had it made in first place.  The design could have derived from family alliances, where the person lived, i.e. whichcountry, even down to whether he was boasting of something he had done, or other.

Surnames can come from the occupation of the invidual, for instance, Fletcher would come from the maker of arrows, Smith would come from a person who worked withmetals, Tanner from a person who tanned animal hides  etc

The use of arms was originally for use in battle when the protagenists faces were covered with their helmets, and it was necessary to know which were allies or enemies. Also it was necessary to know who were your officers so you could keep an eye on them for orders, etc.

In the Middle Ages, a knight could be identified either by his coat of arms emblazoned on his shield, or by the crest on his helmet.

The rules of heraldry are very complex, and heraldry itself is almost 900 years old.  Although old it is still much in use, many cities around the world use coats of arms to this day.

One of the rules governing the right to a specific coat of arms is for an unbroken male line of descent, pretty much in the same way as titles are inherited.It could be that a male had changed his surname for some reason, but he may have still been entitled to bear his Father’s arms.  There is no such thing as a coat of arms tied to a specific family name – it is a very individual thing, tied to the person who had the arms made in the first place.

There are even situations where you could only bear the ancestral arms if you were descended from the oldest son descended from a line of eldest sons.

It actually was possible for a woman to have the right to use their Father’s coat of arms, as long as they remained single.  They could, however, combine their arms with those of their Husband.  If he didn’t have the right to arms then she could continue to use theancestral arms, but couldn’t pass the right down to her children.

Here it becomes very complicated – if a man who had arms only had daughters, then the daughters had the right to these arms and if these ladies were married and had children, the children could quarter the arms of their Mother and Father.  Here’s the difficulty with this situation, if the Father didn’t have the right to arms, then the children couldn’t use the arms of their Mother.  This rule applies under British Law.

It is so convoluted, but the main thing to remember is that just because you have the same name as someone who has a coat of arms does not mean that you use the arms and claim them as your own

If you are a citizen of the US and believe that because your ancestors emigrated from England and they may have had a coat of arms, that it entitles you to use the arms.  This is not so and to do so may mean that you would be breaking the law of the country of origin of the arms. The American citizen may however, devise their own coat of arms etc. but this must not break any copyright laws pertaining to any arms covered by trademark.

Having said all that, I don’t believe that there would be a problem if you wanted, for fun, to have a plaque on your wall displaying a coat of arms which is allied to your family surname, just as a talking point for visitors.  Or, for instance, if you had a teatowel or pen with the heraldic design on, as long as you don’t try to use it in any other way, other than for your own amusement .After all, there are numerous companies on the web who sell products showing the coats of arms.

  As long as you don’t seek to gain benefit from the use of them I believe there would not be a problem.

It is possible to have A, B, AB or O blood group, and on top of that you can be Rh positive or Rh negative.

Your blood type is nothing to do with where you live, this is inherited from your parents.  Therefore, it is possible to see which group of peoples have the same blood group and where the highest incidence occurs.

Overall, in the world, B is a rare ABO blood allele [type].  Only 16% of all humanity have this type.  The highest incidence is in Central Asia and it is lowest in the Americas and Australia.

There are however, some high pockets in Africa.

The A blood allele is a bit more common around the world than B, with about 21% of people having blood type A.  The highest frequencies are to be found in some smallpopulations, the Blackfoot Indians of Montana have 30-35%, the Australian Aborigines have 40-53% and the Lapps, or Saami people of Northern Scandinavia have 50-90%.

The A allele is not to be found among Central and South American Indians.

O blood type is common around the world.  About 63% of people share this type.  The incidence of this blood type is nearly 100% in the indigenous peoples of Central and

South America.  It is quite high also among Australian Aborigines and in Western Europe [most especially among Celtic peoples].  The lowest frequency of O is to be found i,Eastern Europe and Central Asia where B is common.

If you have blood group A then you’ve got A antigens covering your red cells.  Blood group B means you have B antigens, Group O has neither and group AB has some of both.

This means that blood group A has anti-B in their plasma, blood group B has anti-A, and to make things more complicated group AB has none and group O has both of the antibodies.

Giving someone blood from the wrong ABO group could be fatal.

The anti-A antibodies in Group B attack group A cells and vice versa.

Blood group A must NEVER be given to a group B person

Then comes another complication – the Rh system.

If you have this antigen present in your blood it is Rh positive, and if you don’t have it, it’s Rh negative.

Rh positive bloods must NEVER be mixed with Rh negative bloods.

It seems that 84% of the population is Rh positive and the remaining 16% is Rh negative.

In history blood Group O was the first type to be identified, next came blood group A, from some time around 15,000 B.C.  Blood type B supposedly came from around 1000 years, then finally came group AB.

In your search for your origins, the distribution of blood groups around the world could give you some idea of where your ancestors came from, perhaps along with a DNA test.

Everything about Family History/genealogy is interesting and it all has a bearing on how you came to be who you are.