"In England, until 1858, the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC) had jurisdiction over all wills submitted for probate on behalf of English citizens who were temporary or permanent inhabitants of North America. Altogether there are over 2,000 such wills among the one million wills registered in the PCC, and their existence has ensured that all persons mentioned in the wills have not only found a permanent place in historical records but have a provable link to English ancestry. Until now the establishment of such a link was usually possible, if at all, only by an arduous examination of the unindexed probate records or by a review of the records published in such books as Mr. Coldham?s own American Wills & Administrations in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1610-1857, published in 1989. Recently, however, The National Archives (TNA) in London published digitized copies of all PCC wills on their website, in theory making all previously hard-to-find information accessible at the touch of a button." --

While Peter Coldham's "American Wills and Administrations in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury" succeeded in its objective of providing a complete listing of the hundreds of PCC wills and administrations with American connections, it does not provide all the information per will or administration that can be found in the following less comprehensive works: Henry Waters' "Genealogical Gleanings in England," Lothrop Withington's "Virginia Gleanings in England," and George Sherwood's "American Colonists in English Records." (Information such as the names of close relations, legatees and witnesses, and references to ownership of property.) To redress this imbalance Mr. Coldham has issued this present work containing complete summaries of all those wills not included in the works of Waters, Withington, or Sherwood, providing the researcher with an accessible compendium of American wills proved in London to complement and stand comparison with the other three, closing the circle on a priceless body of data.

Beginning in 1924, Proceedings are incorporated into the Apr. number.

A collection of many abstracts and listings of wills from England and Wales regarding persons who emigrated to the American colonies.