Catalogue description Prerogative Court of Canterbury and successors: Indexes to Exhibits

The indexes in this series are organised by name of testator or intestate to which the exhibits relate. They bring together all the documents exhibited in that year relating to a single estate. References are supplied in the form of the registry numbers which were endorsed on the exhibits. An entry in the index for 1735 (PROB 33/3) reads:

Alleyne Saml Afft 35 Decl 225 Proxy Renun 235:

This indicates that in a bundle for the year 1735 there is an affidavit relating to the estate of Samuel Alleyne with the registry number 35, a declaration in lieu of an inventory with the registry number 225, and a proxy of renunciation with the registry number 235.

The list to PROB 31 serves as a key for converting references taken from PROB 33/2-36 into current PRO references. For instance the catalogue shows that the affidavit relating to Samuel Alleyne, registered in 1735 as exhibit number 35, is in the January 1735 bundle, and that that bundle has the current reference PROB 31/136

The term appealed in the margin alongside the name of a cause in PROB 33 indicates that an appeal was made from the sentence of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury to the High Court of Delegates, or, from 1834, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The extant records relating to such appeals are in the DEL and PCAP departments.

It is likely that the indexes in PROB 33/2-36 were originally compiled in separate annual volumes, but that at some date, possibly while the records were in the custody of the Principal Probate Registry of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice between 1874 and the early 1960s, they were rebound to form the present thirty five volumes.