A large collection of will transcriptions has been assembled by Sheila. It represents many years of work by her and by a number of volunteer transcribers. Martyn helped with the compilation of the index.
The published collection contains transcribed wills for England and Wales for the years 1409 to 1857 for Yeo and variant surnames, and an index of wills for the years 1858 to 1943. Sheila published it online in PDF format in 2005 and it is available below. The file cannot be printed and is subject to copyright.
Users of some operating systems might need Adobe Acrobat to view it. © Sheila Yeo 2005
Please use the Contact Us page to send questions about the transcriptions, report any corrections, or let us know of any wills that are not included.
A revised and significantly expanded set of will records is under development. It will include corrected versions of many of the transcriptions, as well as many additional wills discovered since Sheila’s 2005 publication, wills made by testators with Yeo as a forename, wills made by testators with surname variants and wills made by widows whose surname at birth was Yeo or a variant. The new format will be fully searchable.
See Wills and the genealogist for further notes on wills and how they are of use.
See Lost wills for notes on the tens of thousands of original Devon wills lost when the probate registry in Exeter was destroyed by bombing in 1942. Many other wills had been lost before 1908.
See Wills of married women for notes on wills made by married women.