Irish Soldiers' Wills to 1917

[Rockford]

Hi,

I can't see whether this has already been posted here, but it was highlighted on the Rootschat message board that the National Archives of Ireland have added a free search facility for Irish Soldiers' Wills up to 1917.

The link is here : http://soldierswills.nationalarchives.i ... w/home.jsp

Best wishes

Brian

[Currie]

Thanks very much for that Brian, it’ll be very useful for a lot of people.

There were only 9000 wills of deceased Irish soldiers out of 35,000 who died. Most likely many of those who didn’t write one didn’t think they owned anything that was worth writing a will about, or didn’t want to tempt fate, or didn’t want to formalize any thinking about their own death, even though death was all about them. Who knows?

It’s always nice to see a National Archives take the initiative to supply this sort of material on their own account, rather than just fall willingly into the clutches of Genealogy Inc. Especially when it’s anything to do with those who laid down their lives, made the supreme sacrifice, earned from their nation a debt of gratitude that is beyond value, and which can never be repaid.

All the best,
Alan