* Probate Search Service Frustration...

[fhtess65]

On Ancestry I can see on the Probate Calendar that a will for my 3rd great-grandmother, Sarah Taylor was proved on 04 Apr 1864 - I know it's her because my 2nd great grandfather, Thomas, was one of the executors and the family all lived at the same address in St Giles, 16 New Compton Street:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/ ... Id=4824759

Yet when I go to the Probate Search Service and look at the images there, my Sarah is missing as are most of the other Sarah Taylors from 1864. What on earth?

I'm already frustrated in that the GRO tells me they can't find the death registration, and now the PSS tells me the will doesn't exist. All I want is a copy of at least one document that supports her death date.

Any hints on what's going on at the PSS?

Thanks!

[Anthias]

Hi Teresa

I managed to find the same image that is shown in ancestry on the Probate Search Service. It loaded up page 45 first, your Sarah Taylor is on page 46, so I just clicked on the next page button at the bottom.

2024-06-07_16-43-33.jpg (286.31 KiB) Viewed 900 times

Not sure where you went wrong.

[jelv]

This one?

Sarah Taylor.png (42.1 KiB) Viewed 899 times

Edit: Anthias beat me to it!

[LornaCraig]

Teresa, the PSS is working for me too.

As for the death registration, I don’t know why GRO doesn’t have it, but Findmypast have this:

Sarah Taylor,
died Q4 1863, St Giles vol 1b p 332.
Could this be her?

Taylor.JPG (10.97 KiB) Viewed 895 times

[Gary_G]

Teresa;

When the GRO Probate Search Service asks for the relevant date, there is a bit of an oddity.
They told me that for certain dates, the probate year was used and for others it was the death year.
I have their email somewhere, but suffice to say, try both.

[fhtess65]

It turns out, silly old me, I actually put the CORRECT year of death in that field when apparently what the search form wanted was the year of PROBATE.

It also seemed, depending on various parameters I used, I had different results each time, when, to my librarian's mind (I work extensively with databases), they should all have been either the same or very similar.

Thanks

Hi Teresa

I managed to find the same image that is shown in ancestry on the Probate Search Service. It loaded up page 45 first, your Sarah Taylor is on page 46, so I just clicked on the next page button at the bottom.
<SNIP>

Not sure where you went wrong.

[fhtess65]

Yep, that one.

I found out from someone else I should have been using Year of Probate in the Year of Death field

Thanks

This one?
<SNIP>

Edit: Anthias beat me to it!

[fhtess65]

Lorna - Thanks. Yes, I had found that on FMP and sent it to the GRO in my email asking what had happened so they could see the actual index entry. While the GRO Online index doesn't have this entry, I found those details at FreeBMD and based my certificate request on them, but figured I'd better show the GRO an image of the actual entry. Interestingly, Ancestry doesn't have those pages in it's Civil Registration images for that year, yet FMP does.

We'll see what happens. At least now I'll have the will, so that's better than only depending on the index and probate calendar results.

Teresa, the PSS is working for me too.

As for the death registration, I don’t know why GRO doesn’t have it, but Findmypast have this:

Sarah Taylor,
died Q4 1863, St Giles vol 1b p 332.
Could this be her?

Taylor.JPG

[fhtess65]

Hi Gary - yes, I was reminded about this by someone else. The PSS needs to update its form to include that information beside the Year of Death field - it will save a lot of people a lot of frustration. Though what was wrong with the old site, I'll never know as I didn't have problems using it.

Thanks

Teresa;

When the GRO Probate Search Service asks for the relevant date, there is a bit of an oddity.
They told me that for certain dates, the probate year was used and for others it was the death year.
I have their email somewhere, but suffice to say, try both.

[LornaCraig]

The PSS needs to update its form to include that information beside the Year of Death field - it will save a lot of people a lot of frustration.

On the second page of the PSS search form(s) there are fields for more search parameters, which are optional. These include year and month and day of Probate, as well as month/day of death. I think if you fill in the probate year there it takes priority over the death year for the search.

[Gary_G]

Teresa;
The issue was more that some records where physically indexed by probate year and others by death year.
The GRO didn't have much choice but to use the records as published.
A "smart" form would be nice, but I got the impression from the GRO that this was more work than they could justify.

[LornaCraig]

Gary, I think the page I referred to in my reply is a 'smart' form. It certainly lets you specify the death and probate dates separately, and my experience of it has been that it works (so far, but maybe I've just been lucky!).

[Gary_G]

Lorna;
Rather than publish my email correspondence with the GRO, suffice to say they acknowledged that there was an issue with how to make the form more "consistent" wrt. the dates. When I use the word, "smart", I was referring to it knowing when the index year changed between death and probate date and using a single year field.

[fhtess65]

But this is the PSS, not the GRO and all they need to do is put in parentheses beside that field the phrase (if using the death year doesn't give the expected result, try the probate year). Something like this

ProbateSuggestionYearofDeathYearofProbate.png (97.83 KiB) Viewed 797 times

Teresa;
The issue was more that some records where physically indexed by probate year and others by death year.
The GRO didn't have much choice but to use the records as published.
A "smart" form would be nice, but I got the impression from the GRO that this was more work than they could justify.

[Gary_G]

Teresa;
If I remember correctly, the GRO said that they felt that they had already clarified this date idiosyncrasy by some means on their website.
That may have swayed their decision on whether it was worth the time to modify the site or not.
Government seldom improves things unless it generates noticeably more revenue.