More on Scottish and English WW1 soldiers' wills

I've just received the following from Ken Nisbet of the Scottish Genealogy Society (www.scotsgenealogy.com), concerning the new First World Wars wills collection now available online at ScotlandsPeople (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), as announced earlier (see http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/scottish-first-world-war-soldiers-wills.html).

In fact, there's quite a bit more available than First World War wills...

Just some extra info re these wills although the date range on the web-site shows 1914-1948 they in fact go back to the 1860's (I had one for 1865). If you enter the word "foot" in regiment you will get some of them. They can be very useful for giving an exact date and place of death in Scotland/England or overseas as I have found wills for soldiers dying in India and at Netley Military hospital Southampton, they also cover scots who died in non-Scottish regiments. The second world war ones can be useful with a place of death for example a second cousin who was killed near St Valery as piper with 2nd Seaforth's the will gives an exact place of death which the CWGC site does not.

Note that the wills are available in a separate collection to the main wills collection on ScotlandsPeople.

Also, thanks to Geoff Swinfield and Diana Bouglas, it seems that the English soldiers' wills database at https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/ has been extended beyond just the First World War also - it seems coverage now provides from 1900 to the early 1950s.

(With thanks to Ken Nisbet, Geoff Swinfield and Diana Bouglas)

Chris

Now available for UK research is the new second edition of the best selling Tracing Your Family History on the Internet: A Guide for Family Historians, whilst my new book British and Irish Newspapers is also now out. And FindmyPast - please reinstate the original Scottish census citations on your new site.