Rampley.net - Rampley Wills 1512-1849

Rampley.net

Rampley Wills 1512-1849

All wills are from the UK unless otherwise mentioned. To view online versions of the wills, use the links to the right. To download, use the links below.

Downloads (Zipped Word Files)

Name	Place	Written	Proved	Source	Download
Richard Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1512	1513	W-l-W
William Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1548	1557	SRO
Richard Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1558	1559	PRO
Alice Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1581	1585	SRO
Richard Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1584	1585	SRO
John Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1585	1585	SRO
Katherine Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1587	1587	SRO
Regnolde Ramplie	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1589	1590	SRO & NCC
Richard Ramply	Fakenham Magna, Suffolk	1600	1600	SRO
William Rample	Rickinghall Superior, Suffolk	1602	1603	SRO
John Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1613	1613	SRO
Thomas Rampley	Walsham-le-Willows, Suffolk	1648	1649	SRO
William Rampley	Rickinghall Superior, Suffolk	1662	1662	SRO
John Rampley	Tostock, Suffolk	1667	1667	SRO
Richard Ramplye	Garboldisham, Norfolk	1759	1760	NCC
Thomas Rampley	Norwich, Norfolk	1770	1772	ANW
James Rampley	Harford County, MD, USA	1812	1817	MJN
Sarah Rampley	Thurston, Suffolk	1813	1821	PRO
Samuel Rampley	Stanton, Suffolk	1814	1820	SRO
James Rampley	Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk	1823	1827	PRO
John Rampley	Woodham, Chertsey, Surrey	1823	1835	PRO
William Rampley	Blofield, Norfolk	1828	1832	NCC
John Rampley	Stanningfield, Suffolk	1835	1835	SRO
Elizabeth Rampley	Moulton St Mary, Norfolk	1849	1850	ANW

The wills contain notes on unusual words. For more definitions have a look at the glossary.

Notes on "Source":

W-le-W: thanks to Audrey McLaughlin of Walsham-le-Willows for providing the original transcript on which this file is based
MJN: an unedited copy taken from Michael John Neill's website
SRO: Suffolk Record Office; transcripts by me
PRO: Public Records Office, original available online; transcripts by me
NCC: Norwich Consistory Court, records held at the Norfolk Record Office, transcripts by me
ANW: Archdeaconaries of Norwich and of Norfolk, records held at the Norfolk Record Office, transcripts by me

The transcripts by me are mostly semi-diplomatic transcripts, so the original spellings are used, but they are quite easy to understand. I have added explanatory notes in the Word versions.

Reading Wills

Before about 1500, most wills are written in Latin (or occasionally French), so although I have two Rampley wills from the fifteenth century, I can't do anything with them, because I don't speak Latin! In fact, even once they had switched to using English for wills, the probate continued to be written in Latin until the eighteenth century. I have not included these Latin probates on the web pages on this site, but the Word versions you can download do have my best guess of what they say.

Handwriting can also present problems if you're not used to the old secretary hand (used roughly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). If you're interested in working it out, I recommend the free online course from the University of Cambridge. It takes a while since there are 28 lessons, but it works - that's how I learnt!

Finding Wills

Note a that if you are trying to track down Suffolk wills you have to look in several places:

for the Archdeacon of Sudbury�s court, the records are held at the Bury St Edmunds branch of the Suffolk Record Office;
for the Consistory (Bishop's) Court, the records are held at the Norfolk Record Office in Norwich (since Suffolk is in the Diocese of Norfolk);
for the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (PCC), the wills are at the Public Records Office (PRO) in Kew, also consultable at the Family Records Centre, London, as well as online;
for the Prerogative Court of York (PTC), the wills are at the Borthwick Institute
for wills proved since 11 January 1858, they are held at the Principal Probate Registry (nothing useful online yet)