HUGUENOTS-WALLOONS-EUROPE-L Archives

From:
Subject: [HWE] Useful research tools : a2a and PRO Online
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2003 13:55:56 EST

Just a tip for those who have never used it . There is an on-line, searchable
catalogue of material in English archives. It isn't complete, in other words
it's growing all the time and is worth revisiting from time to time. The site
is at:

http://www.a2a.pro.gov.uk/

The search engine is not bad, but you will need to put in variant spellings
yourself. It's turned up references and summaries of files which I would
never have known of, let alone located otherwise. You don't get the files
themselves, but you do get contact details for the archive holding them -
very handy for those working at a distance.

The next site :

http://www.pro-online.pro.gov.uk/SearchNew.asp?collection_id=1

is also growing rapidly ( and giving progressively earlier wills ) and gives
images of court copies of probated wills . You will have to transcribe them
yourself, but the handwriting is not too bad and the conventions soon become
obvious. Searching is free, and can be informative. Downloading a will costs
3 GBP, payable by credit card. The search engine copes with some variants,
but not all. There are possible Low Country links - I came across this by
accident - searching for my APTER tribe, I also got given details of wills
of members of religious CHAPTERs in the Low Countries - so there could be
some sort of Wall/Hug link there. Revisit this site often -it's growing
quickly.

Best wishes,
Robert Hillier,
Poole,
Dorset

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