New Plans Promise Easier Access to Historic Wills Through Digitisation Drive

Amateur genealogists, professional historians, and curious family researchers may soon gain faster, easier access to centuries of archival material, thanks to an ambitious new proposal by the Ministry of Justice to digitise millions of historic wills.

Announced on 15 December 2023, this initiative—spearheaded by Justice Minister Mike Freer—could see wills dating back to the 1800s made available online for public viewing, making family research and historical scholarship more accessible and less dependent on outdated, manual systems.

With around 110 million wills and related documents currently stored in physical form across government facilities—at a cost of £4.5 million per year to the taxpayer—the new digitisation programme aims to both modernise access and reduce costs, while preserving documents of significant historical interest in their original form.

Why Historic Wills Matter

Wills are more than legal paperwork. They are snapshots of history, offering glimpses into the personal lives, relationships, and assets of people from the past. For genealogists, they can help trace family trees. For historians, they reveal societal values, inheritance patterns, and the changing face of wealth across the centuries.

Justice Minister Mike Freer emphasised this point in the announcement:

“Historic wills can provide us with a unique window into the past and we want to make it as easy for amateur and professional historians alike to access these documents.”

Some of these documents include the wills of historical icons such as Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, and Princess Diana—whose papers are currently held at a Ministry of Justice storage facility in Birmingham.

What’s Changing?

Currently, if a person wishes to view a will submitted before 2021, they must:

Request access from the relevant authority,

Wait for the document to be physically retrieved from storage,

Wait again for it to be scanned and digitised before it can be sent.

This process can take several weeks and requires significant manual labour and taxpayer resources.

Under the new proposal:

• A nationwide digitisation programme would begin scanning older wills dating back to 1858, when courts began permanently preserving such records.
• Once digitised, documents would be instantly accessible online, removing long waiting periods and streamlining the public records system.
• The programme would work backwards from present-day records, ensuring that the oldest wills are digitised and added over time.

Preserving Paper Where It Counts

One important aspect of the consultation is the preservation of original paper wills in certain circumstances. While most wills may only be stored physically for up to 25 years before only the digital version is retained, the Ministry of Justice recognises that some documents deserve long-term preservation in their original form.

The consultation seeks public and expert opinion on criteria for preserving such documents. Notable factors may include:

• The celebrity or national significance of the individual (e.g., Dickens, Darwin, or Princess Diana),
• The historical or cultural relevance of the will’s content,
• The sentimental value to surviving family members.

The goal is to ensure that the digitisation drive doesn’t come at the cost of erasing material history, but rather enhances accessibility while protecting and preserving the most valuable artifacts.

Why This Matters for Researchers and the Public

For decades, the High Court has been required to preserve wills submitted for probate permanently. However, these paper-based systems have become cumbersome and expensive to maintain. This initiative will modernise the wills and probate archive by:

• Reducing costs of physical storage and document retrieval;
• Speeding up access to historical records, benefiting researchers, authors, students, and families;
• Safeguarding history by preserving significant documents in both physical and digital formats.

For amateur family historians—many of whom rely on sites like Ancestry.co.uk or the National Archives—this could be a game changer. Easier access to wills means faster confirmation of family links, estate distributions, or even insights into forgotten branches of a family tree.

The Bigger Picture: Modernising Probate and Archives

This digitisation plan builds on broader modernisation efforts across the UK’s probate system. Since 2021, routine digitising of new wills has been in place, but this proposal marks the first significant step toward retrospective digitisation of pre-2021 documents.

It also follows recent reforms that halved probate waiting times and introduced online probate applications, further demonstrating the Government’s focus on using digital tools to streamline public services.

As Freer noted:

“Digitalisation allows us to move with the times and save the taxpayer valuable money, while preserving paper copies of noteworthy wills which hold historical importance.”

Consultation Now Open

The Ministry of Justice is currently running a public consultation on these plans, inviting feedback from:

• Archivists and academics
• Legal professionals
• Historians and researchers
• Members of the public, including families and genealogy hobbyists

The consultation includes proposed guidelines for how long physical wills should be kept, what criteria should be used to preserve original copies, and how access systems can be improved for public users.

Timeline and Next Steps

The digitisation of millions of historic wills is a significant undertaking. While no firm end date has been given, the consultation process is the first formal step. Once responses are gathered and reviewed, implementation timelines and operational plans will follow.

Initial digitisation began in 2021, so infrastructure and systems are already in place. The proposal simply scales that process to older documents in a systematic and accessible way.

Why You Should Care

Whether you're a:

• Family member trying to confirm a legacy
• Local historian tracing your community’s past
• Academic studying class and inheritance trends
• Genealogy enthusiast hoping to fill in missing branches of your family tree

This proposal directly benefits you.

It’s about more than just paperwork. It’s about unlocking the stories of the people who came before us—and ensuring that those stories are preserved, accessible, and protected for generations to come.

Interested in Probate or Historic Will Access?

If you need help accessing a will, applying for probate, or understanding how the law affects estate planning or inheritance:

Call Parachute Law today on 0207 183 4547
Contact us online for tailored support and advice