Wills

[llamas98]

Please could you tell me how I can find the will of my Grandfather who died in France in 1917.

[christanel]

Hello llamas and welcome to British-Genealogy

Was your grandfather French or was he another nationality serving his country in WW1?

Findmypast do have some wills of people who died in France.

Would you like to tell us your grandfather's name and we can take a look to see what is available.

The National Archives has a guide to wills Here

Christina

[Pam Downes]

If he was a British soldier, then try here https://www.gov.uk/probate-search

However if he was more specifically an Scottish or Irish soldier, then google 'Soldier's wills' (grammatically the apostrophe might be in the wrong place but do the search as I've written the term) and you'll see links to sites for wills for those soldiers.

Pam

[llamas98]

Thankyou Christina. His name was Fred Bates and he was killed in action 28th April 1917. He was a Lance Corporal in The South Staffs Regiment and his service number is 16812.
I recently saw something on tv where all soldiers were asked to write a letter to their loved ones in case they were killed and wondered if there was any evidence of one.

[llamas98]

Thankyou Pam that is very helpful. I was wondering if there was a free service for this.

[SueNSW]

It's free to confirm that he left something - but you'll have to pay GBP10 if you want to download it and view it on line