Probate - Administration with will

[JayG]

I've just found an entry for my great grandmother in the updated probate indexes for 1952. I've got other admons but never got copies as I understand 99% of the time there won't be anymore information than in the index. In this case as the admon is listed with will is it worth while sending for a copy & will I get a copy of the will?

[Phoenix]

Jay, I had always assumed the same as you - someone very snooty at Somerset House told me there was no point in applying for admons, but I think someone on these boards said that they had applied for and got both: there had been some irregularity in the will (eg not enough witnesses or executors dead) but the administration had proceded in accordance with its provisions.

[Olde Crone]

I always send for admons even though they usually tell you little...but occasionally they tell you A LOT, lol.

An early admon (c1725?) which was issued some ten years after the man died, revealed that my dead man was a silly old fool who had remarried for the third time to a woman 48 years younger than himself and then died of excitement, no doubt. She had managed to hold on to his property for ten years, whereupon she became pregnant by a local man and the dead man's children forced the admon, which was administered by the local Vicar (to see fair play, I expect) and the widow's intended husband.

Of course, it didn't SAY all that on the Admon, but the names of the administrators made me do some research which led to those conclusions.

OC

[JayG]

I've got it in my head, from somewhere, that admons aren't going to give anymore than the index Phoenix, i've seen posts on other forums recently saying the same too.

I'm thinking great grandmother's might not of been a witnessed will.

I was told that her daughter left a will but it wasn't witnesses & that her estranged husband ended up with everything, i've found her entry in the index & that's an admon only, granted to the husband & their daughter. I'm wondering now if my great aunt has got muddled with information regarding her sister & mother? She was in her late 80's when I first started asking questions about the family & died a few years later.

OC I do have pre 1858 admons have been really usefully & have lots of info. One I can think on for a woman in 1855 has the names of all her living children & the husbands names of the married daughters (very helpful when you haven't picked up some of them!) plus it has the date her husband died which was pre 1837, helpful again when i'd already picked up a post 1837 death I thought was him!

I will send for great grandmothers admon & might get the daughter's who died the year before.

[kiterunner]

I think that for an Administration with the Will you would get the will as well as the letters of administration, but I can't remember if I have actually sent for one of those myself to check. I agree that usually the letter of administration on its own isn't going to tell you much, but you never know - when I got round to ordering a copy of one for a certain person in my tree, it listed her children as next of kin and there was one I had never heard of!

[Jill]

You'll get the will too, I've got an Admon with will of a relative from the 1970s, her named Executor had died and she left a substantial amount to a charities, one of the charities applied for Administration of the estate and was granted it. (Her only personal bequest in the will in a codicil leaving a commemorative medal for Brunel's ship the Great Britain which she left to her doctor)

[Uncle John]

I too have an Admon with Will, dating from the mid-1800s. The will wasn't properly witnessed but was administered as if it was.

[JayG]

Reading Jill's comment it's got me thinking that the admon might be to do with a deceased executor (her daughter died in 1951) rather than it not being witnesses. After looking at the index again to fill out the form I noticed it wasn't granted until 1954 & not the year she died as I had first thought i'd read.

Will see what's what when the will arrives.