500 and Counting

We have been at the Cheshire Archives 3.5 days and today we read our 500th probate dispute from the Chester Diocese. The real beauty is that we get to do this in the original documents. We sit in a row at Tables 1, 2, 3, each with a bundle of case files (like you see before K, above). I enter basic info on an excel spreadsheet, and if the cases contain the info we are looking for we take a digital photo of the entire case. It has worked out incredibly well.While the disputes are interesting as examples of family and financial conflict, they are also full of incidental details that surprise, entertain, and educate us. B fell in love with a man's estate inventory that listed, by title, each of his massive amount of books. K found a will forged by what could only have been the dimmest forger ever to appear before the diocesan court. He went to all the trouble to forge a will, witnesses and all, but then dated it for nine days after the death of the testator. That will was truly from beyond the grave. I was intrigued by the woman, who when her husband died married her servant. She had five children and all of his and her labor went to their upkeep. When the servant husband died, someone tried to sue her to get money from his estate. She claimed poverty because he had been a day laborer and because she still had to support his two, uh, spurious children. He sounds like a real catch.

The archives close at 5pm, but the sun doesn't set until 10pm. So, we stroll around Chester viewing the lovely Tudor-Stuart architecture and pleasantly squabbling about where to eat dinner. (A piece of advice, avoid the Mexican food in Chester.)