Somerset Wills: Monday and Siraut
 

I thought I would start an open thread about the above title, even though the topic is mainly of interest to Phoenix and myself.
Volume 89 of the Somerset Record Society is Somerset Wills, extracted by AJ Monday and edited by Mary Siraut. There will abstracts for not not only Somerset people, but also some Devon wills. This latter is of interest to me.
Phoenix, as you mentioned in another thread, there are a number of Smyth/Smith wills from Great Torrington, although strangely not all of them. I was a little disappointed that John Smyth's will of 1680 was not there, as I suspect he was "the merchant" mentioned in the parish registers. From the abstracts I have worked out that John the merchant was the son of Richard and Grace Smyth, and therefore the brother of your ancestor James.
The will abstracts have helped to build a rough family tree, which can be confirmed and complemented by the Great Torrington parish registers.
I would recommend anyone with either Somerset or Devon ancestors to make use of this resource, which goes some way to making up for the otherwise lack of Devon and Somerset wills.

I should add that I have the above book and am happy to do lookups for anyone interested.

It is a wonderful book, isn't it?

I cannot remember when it was published, but the information must have been extracted before the second world war. I don't know what finding aids would have been in place for Pcc wills at that date, but the SoG didn't produce a calendar until the 1950s. I presume that before then we would have had to search handwritten annual calendars, arranged simply by initial letter of surname - rather like death duty indexes. These are not impossible to use, but very time consuming.

I'd like to take you up on the kind offer to do look ups, please Pinefamily.

I'm interested in Wills by Underhay(s), Leveridge and Burbage in Yeovil, please.

There's no rush....

Many thanks

Phoenix, I can only imagine how slow and time consuming it must have been for people like Monday extracting will abstracts (and other information). I tip my hat to these early genealogists and historians.
Sue, I will look up those names over the next few days.

Does the book give details of the wills - the people mentioned etc? If so there are 3 that I am interested in if they are in the book, once you have finished with Sue's.

They are for John Hiles the elder of Withycombe Hadley 1667; William Hyles of Withycombe 1650 and Edmond Cording of Exton 1655.

Thanks.

Thank you :)