Wills, Administrations, Probate and Inventories
FIBIS resources
The following information is available on the FIBIS Search database.
- Bengal Wills in the India Office Records 1780 to 1866 Complete, 1867-1909 surnames beginning ‘A’ only.
- Officers Wills in the India Office Records an index and extract from the IOR series L/AG/34/30/30. The wills of only 37 officers are included. They cover all three presidencies over the years 1831 to 1875
- Administration Act Books Administrations relating to India 1830 to 1857
- Limited Administration Act Books relating to India 1830 to 1839
If you want to obtain a copy of a will, to which you have found a reference in FIBIS’s transcriptions from the British Library’s India Office records, this India Office Records link gives contact details at the very bottom of the webpage. A researcher advised that the CD she received from the British Library containing the will could not be read by her computer so she needed to contact her local computer shop, which cost her more, so enquire which versions are available.
External Links
British Library webpage Wills and Administration with sources from the India Office Records
Note that if you are searching for a person who lived out of Calcutta and the other capitals, up-country, in the mofussil, they will probably be found in the records of the District Courts, not the Supreme Courts
The LDS (Mormon) Family History Library Catalogue contains many films of records which originated in the India Office. This link, obtained by a keyword search for : Probate, India lists them out
