Genealogy Chat

I'm trying to get clues from an ancestor's will, dated 1788.....money is mentioned several times in the will....the larger amounts are written as 'eighty pounds of lawful money of Great Britain'.....wondering if it was common practice to mention Great Britain, or if this ancestor could be the one who was born in France (like our family tales mention). Any ideas greatly appreciated, thank you.

This sounds a bit thick but could it just be to be sure that it was £80 cash & not 80 pounds of horse manure??? Sarah :-)

Hi Sarah. Actually, two sentences after that is mentioned: 'All the rest residue and remainder of my corn cattle husbandry...' :) Fairly certain they weren't talking about manure previously, though. :) (The will is brief and well written, unlike my other will!!) But, thank you for the idea. PS Just reread the will and it actually says: '...the sum of eighty pounds...'.

My most elusive ancestor wrote his will in 1765. He was probably born and bred in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. Here's an extract (sounds a friendly chap??!) ''I give and devise Three Shillings of lawful money of Great Britain unto my Daughter Susanna to be paid to her weekly and every week so long as my said Daughter shall live and reside separate and apart from her present Husband'' LOL Merry

Merry Hitchin is full of interesting characters!

LOL - Really nell?? Such as?????? Did you know there is a Bermuda Triangle in Hitchin? A whole bough of my tree fell into it in the 1700's! Merry

Ahh poor susanna - do you know which she chose?? Sarah :-)

Yes.....the husband!! LOL She had already had the embarrassment of three attempts to get married......the first two she was underage and she went to a nearby parish rather than risk her own.......Both times dad turned up and put a stop to it - each time the vicar wrote ''Forbid by father'' in the banns register!! The third time she had turned 21 so he couldn't do anything.....she had been married 6 years by the time her dad wrote his will. Hubby was an Irish Soldier! LOL.....he did very well for himself in later years, but by that time Susannah had died :o(( Merry

:) :)

Just to add that in times gone by, people talked of money in terms of the guinea, (One pound and one shilling? ) I was wondering if this had anything to do with it. Roy

Hi Roy. William had four children; two (not the first two) were noted with the French spelling of the name, so there's a chance this is the French ancestor. Thank you for your information -- perhaps that's why it is 'spelled out' in the will - so there won't be confusion between the types of money.

Also wasn't there a lot of counterfeit money around in the days when it was made of precious metals? Merry

Hi Merry. Just googled 'lawful money...' Apparently it was fairly common wording -- will research it further. Thank you for the idea.

I have a will from June 1803 which goes into even more detail and says 'the sum of fifty pounds of lawful money of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as used in Great Britain' and repeats this phrase about four times within what would otherwise be a short will. so a common description I think. Writer of the will from London.

Thank you very much, Tracey. This is also a concise will; guess that's just what they did back then, eh?

The lawyers/solicitors who wrote the Wills were paid by the word - so I imagine they came up with lots of creative ways of insisiting on extra wordage to up their fees. Stretching 'the sum of eighty pounds' to read ''the sum of eighty pounds of lawful money of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as used in Great Britain' would have been very lucrative. I have one will that runs to 6 pages and the first three are bequeathing annual sums etc to two daughters. But instead or writing 'to each of my two daughters I give' he stretched it out with 'to my daughetr Maragret I give' and then a page and half of orders and then 'to my daughetr Emma I give... ' and then he repeated exactly what had been written for Margaret crafty bugger. There's also four codicils, the first two of which were dated and signed the same as the original Will, so rather than re-write the original to make it simpler he obviously charged for the first and then charged for the two added bits.

I was going to say just the same as Zoe. Solicitors were paid by the word - and, boy, did they use a lot of unnecsessary ones!!! Anne

Hi Zoe and Anne. This will is fairly short, but after reading what you and others have said, I've looked it over again and there are places where things are elaborated. He had three sons and a daughter and rather than just write out his daughter's name, it says '...my aforesaid daughter Eliz. Wife of James Andrew...' Since he only had one daughter (that I know of!), adding her husband's name didn't seem totally necessary, especially since she and her husband were mentioned three times! It is helpful though, as it confirms what is mentioned on the IGI. Thank you, Zoe and Anne.