Hello I’m Claire Skinner, Principal Archivist at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. From Monday 25 January the Wiltshire and Swindon Archives are launching a new “pay-per-view” approach to the thousands of digital images on the on-line Wiltshire Wills database. See: www.wiltshirewills.org

Access to the catalogue of over 100,000 individuals' wills and other probate records, from the time of Henry VIII to 1858, will continue to be free of charge. Below is a wonderful example of an informal hand written will, found on the reverse of an old letter. 

Access to the wills (or images of wills where available) is still be free of charge for people visiting Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in person. People can still also order copies through the Centre at our standard rates.

However, we’ve introduced this new system involving a flat rate of £5 per testator (a testator is the deceased person leaving a will or administration), payable via credit or debit card on-line, in order to increase staff capacity for digitisation which will speed up the progress of digitising records and allow us to add them to the on-line system more quickly.

What you get for your payment will vary from testator to testator - there could be as few as 1 and as many as 60 images for each person leaving a will. It is clear from looking at the catalogue how many are available. For anyone needing access to a very large quantity of wills - for example, more than 50 please contact meclaireskinner@wiltshire.gov.uk, to discuss your requirements.

For other examples of the pay-per-view approach see examples on the 1911 Census website http://www.1911census.co.uk/ and the National Archives http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/

At the same time as introducing this system, we are pleased to be able to make available some extra images not previously available on-line. Information about which wills have been newly added will be available at:

http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/heritage/help.php#images

For more information please contact me on (01249) 705513 or e-mail claireskinner@wiltshire.gov.uk