Wills

[ElizabethHerts]

It was the will of Thomas Eaten.

This was the information I was faced with:


EATON THOMAS EATEN 1777 yeoman, Boycott, Oxfordshire Oxford: Consistory Will, Commission, 99.9; 21/2/22; 302/2/10

ON Reference Document Type Document Reference Contents
No of Images
10949 Registered Will 99.9
3
10950 Original Will 21/2/22 1-75 [filed Cons. wills]
4
10951 Original Will 302/2/10 301-306 [subsidiary docs]
3


If I had a choice I would always go for the original will. However, I got all three document sets here.

The third set - subsidiary docs -

I had an explanation of this from the Oxfordshire Family History Society which explains it better than I can:

"The thing from Benjamin Wheeley (a senior bureaucrat) is a "Commission" -- he is telling a couple of parsons (ie junior bureacrats) to go and swear the Executor to deal with the will properly.
It's a fairly bog-standard thing, and the "form of the oath" would be attached to it as a matter of course.
At that point, he wouldn't have known (or cared) that the Executors were Quakers.

What often puzzles me is that so few of these things have survived, since they must have been issued for the majority of wills -- all but those for which the Executors trundled up to Oxford in person.
I can only assume that the completed forms went back to Rev Wheeley or whoever, and were binned."

[ElizabethHerts]

Originally Posted by tenterfieldjulie

Thanks Phoenix and Liza .. steep learning curve for me at the moment .. Julie
I'm having a glass of merlot, so I'll try and stay coherent lol.

We are at opposite ends of the day - so my beverage is tea!
Not that anything tastes right - I've finally got this odd virus R passed on.
It's a slight sore throat but my tongue tip is sore and my sense of taste very odd. I can't taste anything sweet at all, so wine tastes fould at the moment!


Re. Thomas Eaton's will - if I could have only have had one I would have just bought the original, but my curiosity got the better of me with the other two sets, so I looked at those too.

More confused .. Elizabeth .. but that isn't unusual ..

I presume that this means the will was written in 1818, but his estate wasn't settled until 1847 .. Does this mean that he died around then? I can't find his death around that time. Julie

First name James Last name Thompson Occupation Farmer
Place Hampden (Buckinghamshire) Date of will 13/12/1818 Date of probate 30/10/1847

[ElizabethHerts]

Originally Posted by tenterfieldjulie

More confused .. Elizabeth .. but that isn't unusual ..

I presume that this means the will was written in 1818, but his estate wasn't settled until 1847 .. Does this mean that he died around then? I can't find his death around that time. Julie

First name James Last name Thompson Occupation Farmer
Place Hampden (Buckinghamshire) Date of will 13/12/1818 Date of probate 30/10/1847

There are two possibilities in my limited experience:

1. He wrote the will in 1818 but didn't die until 1847 or just before.
2. He wrote the will in 1818 and died sometime after (immediately or a year or so or more) but no-one bothered to have the will proved until 1847.

Phoenix or Kiterunner will probably know more about this than me.

Yes that is my dilemma .. If he died after 1837, he should be fairly easy to find, but patchy if before. He died at Hampden not sure what district that comes under .. off to see Julie

[ElizabethHerts]

Julie, do you still have contact with the lady from the Bucks. FH society? Perhaps she could look on her database for possible deaths for you?

[Phoenix]

Off to work, but my tuppence is: wills could kick around for years because nobody needed to prove them. It is only if you want to transfer property, or discover an old bank book in the bottom of a drawer, or a widow dies or a minor comes of age that proving a will may become important.

Yes I had a Jaffrey son returning from South America after 30 years to Scotland and found some shares in a bridge that his father owned ... the authority's didn't know that either when they sold him up ..
The thing that confuses me with James Thompson is that he was a carpenter when he married 1778 and in 1798, supposedly died 1822, this will written 1818 a farmer?
For curiosity if nothing else, I'll buy wills for William, James and Elizabeth and see what they say. Need to make sure there is money on my debit card first lol Thanks Julie

[Olde Crone]

Farmer would top carpenter in terms of Will-making - a farmer would have land and/or tenancies to pass on (in which various authorities would have an interest) whereas a carpenter probably wouldn't. So he may have been a carpenter as well as being a farmer, but farmer was more important.

OC

Thanks OC that rules him in again. I found James Jnr. in 1841 census as an ag lab working at Chalfont St. Giles. I don't think he would have become the farmer at Hampden in this will.. Need to find debit card and buy the wills. Julie