Improving Access: A Proposal to Create a Database for the Probate Records at the Borthwick Institute

Abstract

The Borthwick Institute has the largest collection of probaterecords outside the PRO, consistingofaround 500,000 to 750,000probates. These include therecords ofthe Prerogative Court ofYork, the ExchequerCourt of York, and more than thirty peculiar jurisdictions. The geographical range is huge, while the temporal range is the largest anywhere; the Institute holds the earliest series of registered wills in England and Wales. It also houses some of the earliest and, later on, the best qualityprobate inventories. At present the finding aids are inadequate; there are finding aids of different sorts compiled at different times from the eighteenth century onwards, but such aids as exist are angled towards family historians. There is an urgent need to compile adequate finding aids covering all the probate material (includinginventories) in a way that makes the materials accessible for both family historians and academic researchers. A database was the obvious choice for doing this, andfor a variety ofreasons Paradox for Windows was chosen for a pilot project.