Death Duty Register changes: TNA has changed how to view them

***Updated 28 Dec 2025***

If you have ever found yourself looking for Death Duty Register entries, you will know the routine:

1. search the 'Index To Death Duty Registers 1796-1903' dataset on FindMyPast by surname and year to find the entry you want,

2. record the surname, year, and folio number because you will need them to find the actual Death Duty Register entry,

3. on The National Archives website search Discovery under IR 26 for the year and browse the results of this search to find the initial letter of the surname and the folio number; record the relevant IR 26 reference,

4. if the year was before 1858 then go to The National Archives in Kew to find the relevant microfilm and scan through it, otherwise book a research visit, order the Death Duty Register, and go to Kew after a week.

In early 2025 TNA made significant changes to this for Death Duty Register entries before 1858. These have now been updated further. You need to be aware of this otherwise your trip to TNA may be a waste of time.

What has changed?

The microfilms from 1857 and earlier are no longer available at TNA, and now it is recommended to call up the original registers for all years - these are kept off-site and require four days notice.

Note that some of the registers from before 1858 have been earlier digitised by FamilySearch. These images of the Death Duty Registers can only be viewed at a FamilySearch Center or a FamilySearch Affiliate Library (TNA is such a library), but NOT AT HOME. If you live in Cambridgeshire then you are in luck: all the Cambridgeshire County Council libraries are FamilySearch Affiliates!

There are benefits to using these FamilySearch images, the most obvious being that the quality of these digitised images of the Death Duty Registers is much better than was the case when viewing the old microfilm on desk projectors. And, and this is also important, you can now save the full resolution digitised images for later use.

But, as with all changes in life, there is a downside. FamilySearch has not provided indexes into the large collection of digital image sets that they have covering Death Duty Registers. Instead you will need to browse.

What's the process with FamilySearch?

You start just as before - search the Index on FindMyPast. But now also note the Volume number because you can use it later to double check you have the right images. As always check whether 'NL' has been added after the folio number - it stands for 'no ledger' and means there is no actual death duty register entry.

In the example here I searched for 'John S Turner' who died in 1851.

The entry we are looking for is highlit in red. It reads 'Turner John S', of 'Canterbury', executor 'Danl Hayward' of 'same place', proved in the Archdeacon's Court of Canterbury (trust me on this one!), Register Volume '3', Folio '609'.

FamilySearch

Now you have to drop over to FamilySearch.org to complete the process.

Search the catalog for records created by 'Estate Duty Office'.

This returns a list of datasets held by FamilySearch. There are four related to Death Duties which are highlit in the image below.

In detail the four datasets are:

1. Death duty register for abstracts of administrations and probates of wills for country courts, 1796-1811 [links to https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/534228]

2. Death duty register for abstracts of administrations in the country courts, 1812-1857 [links to https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/613685]

3. Death duty register for wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and country courts, 1812-1857 [links to https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/614554]

4. Death duty register for wills in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1796-1811; and administrations, 1796-1857 and indexes [links to https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/522838]

In our example we want the third dataset. Clicking on it leads through to a long list of separate digital image films. The title of each includes the year (we want 1851), volume number (we want 3), initial letter of the surname (we want T), and folio range covered (we want 609). Scroll to the one you need (hint: for this example, change the display to show 100 entries per page and then jump to page 12 of 13).

In detail the digital image film we need is called 'Surnames S-T, [v. 2], folio nos. 448-534 1851 Surnames S-T, [v. 3], folio nos. 537-733 1851' - it contains some images from Register Volume 2 and some from Register Volume 3. Note down the Film Number (1817541) for your source citation.

If you were in a FamilySearch Affiliate Library you could now click on the camera icon on the right to see a lightbox of every image, which you could then browse through, just like the old microfilm, looking for the Folio Number 609 at top left.

But if you are at home, like I was when I took this screenshot, the camera icon has a little exclamation mark on it, and this is as far as you can go.

If you could click through and find folio 609, this is what you would see:

This is much clearer than it would appear on the old microfilm viewers.

Conclusion

I am a great believer in changing processes if the new process is an improvement on the old. In this case there are significant benefits, the main one being that it is no longer necessary to visit Kew (for entries before 1858). Recommended!

Julian Luttrell

The Tree Sleuths, 2025. The Tree Sleuths website.