Consultation on Destruction of Wills

You may have seen in the press and on social media, reports of the consultation on wills. In summary, there is a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) proposal to digitise all original wills and, once that process is complete, destroy the original records. No one is questioning the importance of wills. They are not only important to family historians but to local historians, community historians and other historical researchers who may be using wills for a variety of reasons, including researching the language of wills, the handwriting, and even the writing materials used.

You can read the details of the consultation here: Storage and retention of original will documents.

The question here that needs to be addressed is: Does digitisation of an original record result in the digitised copy being a suitable replacement for the original?

The answer is of course a resounding ‘no’. How many of you have used digitised records before? Think about, for example, census records or parish registers. There are images missing, poor quality images, images where something, such as an added note, obscured part of a page but the page was not copied a second time without the note in the way. What about the reverse side of the pages? Sometimes there are important notes added that will not be copied if the plan is just to ‘make copies of the documents’.

Of course, those researchers looking at writing materials, inks and so on will need access to the originals regardless.

Longevity of technology is also an issue. Technology develops, is updated, replaced and becomes obsolete all the time. The MoJ consultation is motivated by ‘the very high cost of preserving the store of original paper wills and the supporting documents supplied in probate applications’ which it estimates at £4.5 million per annum. What of the cost of maintaining technology? More importantly, can they really guarantee no data will be lost each time technology is updated? No. The only way to ensure the set of records remains complete is to, well, keep the originals!

You can read a more detailed piece on this here: Destruction of Original Wills.

The consultation runs only through to the 23rd February 2024. It is therefore important to have your say now!

How can you make a difference?

The most important thing you can do to make a difference is:

(1) Respond to the consultation yourself:
Storage and retention of original will documents

Will Storage consultation
Ministry of Justice
Civil Justice and Law Division,
Postpoint 5.25
102 Petty France
London
SW1H 9AJ

Email: civil_justice_poli@justice.gov.uk

(2) You should also consider signing the petition started by professional genealogist, Richard Holt:
Petition: do not allow original wills to be destroyed after 25 years