Wills of Maidstone and the Surrounding Areas

This page is a brief introduction to wills and related records with links to further resources. To find the information on the specific wills of interest to the project and maps and visualisations then please see our Wills Data page and Wills Transcriptions.

What are Wills?

Wills are the most common surviving personal record from early modern England. Essentially, a will was a legal document in which an individual (the testator) outlined how their estate (their goods, lands, and money) should be distributed after they died. If a person died intestate (without a will), their estate was divided up according to customary practice. This usually meant their closest male heirs would inherit. The probate process, overseen by church courts, validated wills, ensured debts were settled, and confirmed executors (named in the will to carry out the deceased’s wishes) or administrators (appointed if there was no will). Disputes over wills, recorded in probate sentences, revealed tensions over inheritance. Together, these records offer invaluable insight into personal wealth, household structures, and legal culture in early modern England.

Wills are fascinating because they give a personal glimpse into the past, showing how people wanted to pass on their belongings and care for their families after death. They reveal family connections, friendships, and social ties, as testators named loved ones, trusted executors, and sometimes even servants or neighbours. Wills also show what people owned—land, household goods, tools of a trade—giving us insight into everyday life and local economies. Bequests to churches, charities, or the poor reflect personal values and religious beliefs. Sometimes, wills even sparked family disputes, recorded in court cases, which tell us about inheritance customs and social tensions. Together, these records help us understand not just what people had, but what mattered to them.

If you think you might be interested in helping us study Maidstone’s wills then please keep reading.

Help us study Maidstone’s Wills

We will offer training and resources to help read and understand early modern records. If you wish to volunteer with us, you might work on one or more of the following tasks:

Transcribing Wills
Work from digitised images of original wills to produce accurate transcriptions using the Transkribus platform.

You can:

• Transcribe records from scratch
  
• Help correct computer-generated transcriptions

Tagging Key Information
Help identify and tag useful historical details, such as:

• Personal names (testators, relatives, witnesses)
  
• Dates (of writing and probate)
  
• Places (residences, properties)
  
• Occupations and social status
  
• Sums of money and references to goods or land

This will allow us to build collective biographies, reconstruct social networks, and analyse wills across time and in large numbers with digital methods.

Verifying and Reviewing
Support other volunteers by reviewing and checking transcription accuracy.

Contributing to Research
Your work will help build a searchable archive of early modern life in Kent — an invaluable resource for historians, genealogists, and the local community.

How It Works

• All work is done online using the Transkribus platform.
• You can volunteer from anywhere, at your own pace.
• You can work with others or alone.
• We’ll offer training and guidance to get you started — whether you’re a complete beginner or already experienced in paleography.

Interested?

Contact us if you’d like to learn more.

Join us in uncovering the stories of Kent’s past — one will at a time.

Material Culture of Wills

If you are interested in reading more about wills there is a plethora of material on the Material Culture of Wills website. This is a project, based at the University of Exeter and The National Archives, which is using crowdsourcing to transcribe tens of thousands of wills all between 1540 and 1790. They have an extensive list of books, articles, or data on wills on their resources pages.

For an introduction to the work of the Exeter wills project please see this short video. Following their tutorials is a good way to learn how to transcribe Early Modern wills.