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Port Royal Wills

Historical records for Jamaica are distributed between the Jamaica Public Archives and the Island Record Office, both of which are located in Spanish Town, Jamaica. Records begin with the English occupation of Jamaica in 1655; Spanish records from the period prior to 1655 did not survive.

The wills are housed in the Island Record Office in Jamaica. Unfortunately, certain volumes of the wills in the Grantors Old Series, which covers the 17th century, are missing. These were reportedly lost when Admiral Knowles moved the capital from Spanish Town to Kingston in 1755. All official records were loaded on to wagons and transported to Kingston only to be returned to Spanish Town three years later. It is believed that on one of the journeys, a wagon overturned, spilling some volumes into a swamp. As with the Port Royal probate inventories, the wills are themselves transcriptions, copied in the 1880s in an effort to preserve the public records. Apparently, the originals were destroyed once the volumes were transcribed.

The following selected transcribed wills cover the period from 1672-1720 (Volumes 1-15). They are all of Port Royal residents and were transcribed by graduate students from microfiche copies housed in the Anthropology Department of Texas A&M University. Much work still has to be done before all the wills are transcribed and saved in electronic format. This page will be continually updated as the work proceeds and the transcribed wills from the other Jamaican parishes are posted.

 

NOTE: Some of the transcribed wills below have a link to their respective transcribed probate inventory

Volumes 1 & 2: 1672-1680

Alexander, Alice 1676
Alexander, Nickolas 1677
Alexander, Samuel 1680
Bannister, James 1674
Hardicke, John 1675
Piper, Thomas 1677
Waller, John 1675
Yates, Edward 1677

Volumes 3 & 4: 1680-1686

Ellis, John 1685/6
Ooischot, Abraham, 1683

Volume 5: 1686-1688

Richardson, Dorothy 1687

Volume 6: 1688-1689

Alder, Thomas 1687/8
Brown, Eleanor 1688/9
Cransborough, Oliver 1689
Diggins, George 1689

Volumes 10 & 11: 1705-1707

Lewis, John 1706
Lewis, Margarett 1706

Volume 13: 1710-1712

Turner, James 1711
Wade, Henry 1712

Volume 14: 1712-1717

Hamilton, Mary 1712/13
St. Dorthey Parish