Weâre delighted to announce an exciting new phase of the âMaterial Culture of Willsâ project â the launch of our Zooniverse site. We hope that the Zooniverse âcrowdsourcingâ platform will allow us to involve hundreds of new volunteers in the project who will work with us to transcribe our sample of 25,000 English wills made […]
In this monthâs post, one of our Expert Volunteers shares her research into one of the wills she came across when transcribing pages for our project. Liz Wood, archivist and project volunteer There is a formula, a routine, to official copies of probate records. The same impersonal clerical hand, standard phrases about mind, bodily health […]
Emily Vine Early modern folk frequently added âconditionsâ to their wills: that a sum of money would not be given until a beneficiary reached the age of twenty-one, got married, or entered a certain profession, or threats to disinherit those who behaved poorly or ignored parental instruction. These caveats and contingencies reflect a key reason […]
Our third will of the month, that of affluent fashionable lady Helen Spratt (d.1726), is as long and as detailed as that of the Lincolnshire farmer Ralph Wrighte [link], and is full of rich detail about Helen’s possessions and what they meant to her. She itemises silk dresses, crimson quilts, and chinaware, and sets out […]
Emily Vine Whatâs in an early modern will? On the one hand the answer to this question is straightforward â according to the legal definition a will is the documentary instrument by which a person regulates the rights of others to their property or family after their death. Yet their value as historical records is […]
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