From: richard@ex-parrot.com   
      
   On 17/04/2020 15:50, Geoff wrote:   
   > Are the early probate records in FamilySearch chronologically in order by   
   > the date the will was written, or by the probate date?   
      
   I'm not sure which probate records you're talking about, but if it's   
   those from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC), they're not in   
   perfect chronological order.  You have to understand that you're not   
   looking at original wills, but rather at near-contemporary copies which   
   court clerks copied into large registers of wills.  Judging from the way   
   they're written up, I suspect a few weeks or even a month would often   
   elapse between probate and them being copied into the registers.   
   Presumably they had a stack of wills that they needed to copy and just   
   worked through that stack, without particular heed to the dates on the   
   document.  This means they're more or less in order by probate, but not   
   exactly.  I've needed to look up a 1719 will a few minutes ago, and took   
   the opportunity to look at the dates of probate on a number of   
   successive wills.  They were in the sequence 4 Jan, 19 Jan, 4 Jan, 5   
   Jan, 8 Jan, 22 Jan, 22 Jan, 11 Jan, 28 Jan, 5 Jan, 18 Jan.   
      
   Richard   
      
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