North East Inheritance database (pre-1858 Durham Probate Records)
Restricted access to collections 2012-2013 Due to continuing building work at Palace Green, access to our collections will be very restricted from 24 August 2012 until 2014. We can only provide access to our collections for researchers by appointment, made at least two weeks in advance during this period. To use the collections held at Palace Green Library and 5 The College please ensure that you contact us beforehand on 0191 3342972 or pg.library@durham.ac.uk in order that we can confirm that the material will be available when you require it. The exhibitions at Palace Green will remain open as advertised.
Simple search
If you want to carry out multiple name searches, or browse lists of probate records arranged by name, you may prefer to use the alphabetical lists. These are available on the downloads page. Otherwise, type in the name you are looking for (or the first few letters) and click on the list names button (hitting Enter may not work in all browsers).
Note that the probate database only includes the names of the deceased persons whom wills and administrations relate to. Other names mentioned within wills (widows, children etc) are not included. The collection covers pre-1858 wills only.
You can type in either a full name in the form Lucas, Caroline (including the space), just the surname, or the first few letters only of the surname.
Note that names are not yet standardised within the probate database, so you may need to search for all possible variant spellings, or type in just the first few letters of the name. If you need to refine your search by date, or search by anything other than personal name, you should use the advanced search instead of this one. The advanced search also enables separate searches of surnames and forenames, and searches for variant spellings of the surnames.