Wills and testamentary records are of assistance to genealogists as evidence of the date of a person's death and for other information which they may contain concerning the dead person's family, place of residence and property.
Before a will can take effect, a grant of probate must be made by a court. If someone dies without having made a will, the court can grant letters of administration of the estate. Since 1858, grants of probate and administration have been made in the Principal and District Registries of the Probate Court (before 1877) or High Court (after 1877). They are indexed in the Calendars of Wills and Administrations and one or two volumes per year, in addition to a consolidated index for the period 1858–1877, are available to consult in the Reading Room.
Up to 1917, the Calendars cover the whole of Ireland, but since 1918 they cover only the 26 counties in the Republic - those indexes covering the six counties of Northern Ireland since 1918 are in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). The Calendars of Wills and Administrations for Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry are searchable online at www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives/will_calendars/wills_search. For the period from 1983 onwards, the Calendars of Wills and Administrations are held in our Reading Room in hardcopy format and are also available to search online.
Before 1858, grants of probate and administration were made by the courts of the Church of Ireland (the Prerogative Court and the Diocesan or Consistorial Courts). There are separate indexes of wills and administrations for each court in the Reading Room. Some of the indexes have been published. Of these the most important are Vicar's Index to Prerogative Wills, 1536-1810 and the Indexes to Dublin Grant Books and Wills, 1270-1800 and 1800-1858.
Copy of will - application form
The records of wills and administrations in the National Archives include the following:
(a) Original wills and administration papers lodged in the Principal Registry since 1904 and in most District Registries since 1900 (indexed in the annual Calendars; wills and administration papers lodged in Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry are in PRONI).
Search wills proved in the Probate Office, Dublin and District Probate Offices nationwide from 1983 onwards
(b) Schedules of assets are, in most cases, contained in the testamentary envelopes with the original wills and administration papers. In the case of the Principal Registry (known as the Probate Office since 1963) the schedules are bound separately and from 1924 onwards they are complete. There are also partial schedules for the years 1875, 1877, 1885, 1890.
(c) Will Books containing copies of most wills proved in District Registries since 1858 and of some wills proved in the Principal Registry in 1874, 1876, 1891 and 1896 (indexed in the annual Calendars; the will books for Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry are in PRONI).
(d) Grant Books containing copies of grants made in the Principal Registry since 1922 and in 1878, 1883, 1891 and 1893 and of most grants made in the District Registries since 1858 (indexed in the annual Calendars; the grant books for Armagh and Belfast up to 1885 are in the National Archives; later grant books for Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry are in PRONI).
(e) Betham's abstracts of wills proved in the Prerogative Court before 1800, of administrations granted in the Prerogative Court before 1802 and of wills proved in the Kildare Diocesan Court before 1827 (indexed in Vicar's Index, the Indexes to Dublin Grants, and the "Index to Wills of the Diocese of Kildare" reprinted from the Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society, iv, No. 6, (1905)).
(f) Inland Revenue registers of wills and administrations containing abstracts of wills and administrations for 1828-1839 (indexed in separate volumes which cover the period 1828-1879; for the years 1840-1857 these indexes give details which do not appear in the general indexes referred to above).
(g) Charitable Donations and Bequests will extract books containing abstracts of wills which made charitable bequests, 1800-1961 (there is a separate card index for the period 1800-1858 available for consultation in the Reading Room).
(h) Other copies and abstracts of wills and administrations for the period both before and after 1858 (indexed in the main testamentary card index in the Reading Room).
(i) Grant books indexes in eight volumes for the years 1811-1834 and 1835-1858 (accession 999/611) and which were originally compiled for a Dublin legal firm.
Researchers should consult the CD-ROM Index of Irish Wills, 1484-1858, Records at the National Archives of Ireland (Eneclann, 1999) for an indication of holdings.