Thousands of Hampshire’s records, spanning back 500 years, are now available on Ancestry® and in the county’s libraries and record office.

Hampshire County Council has collaborated with Ancestry, the global leader in family history, to make nearly 100,000 of Hampshire and Isle of Wight wills and probates available online for the first time.

As well as being digitised for Ancestry.co.uk the probate records will be freely accessible from Hampshire Record Office in Winchester and in public libraries across the county.

Online and in person visitors will be able to discover Hampshire residents like Thomas Hancock of Hawley, Yateley who died of the plague in 1604. The records show that his will was handed to Alexander Read on a nine-foot pole because Hancock was afraid of passing on the infection to his witnesses.

The registers also features Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials for Hampshire parishes in Winchester Diocese dating from 1536 to 1921.

You can read more in an article by Adele Bouchard published in the Hampshire Chronicle web site at: https://tinyurl.com/223j3fm9.