The majority of wills and administrations proved in Ireland prior to ca. 1900 were destroyed in the PRO in 1922 and, as a result, the genealogists is left to rely on substitutes and abstracts. Numbered amongst these are Sir William Betham’s Abstracts of Wills and Administrations.

Sir William Betham, Ulster King of Arms, prepared 241 volumes of abstracts for genealogical purposes. These were drawn mainly from Prerogative Wills and Administrations dated prior to 1800, and include also some Diocesan Wills and Marriage Licence Bonds. There are, as well, 8 volumes of Betham Correspondence, dealing with genealogical research and including extracts from records. See Lists of Betham Abstracts, and P B Phair, ‘Sir William Betham’s Manuscripts’, Analecta Hibernica, 27, 1972, pages 1-99. He also prepared ‘sketch pedigrees’, which were an attempt to place, into a tabular form, information extracted from the wills and administrations recorded in the Diocesan Courts of Ireland. In some cases the sketch pedigrees drawn-up by Betham extend over four of five generations. In other cases the sketch pedigree consists of a single individual.

Sir Arthur Vicars (1864-1921), one of Betham’s successors as Ulster King of Arms, published in 1897 the Index to the Prerogative Wills of Ireland, 1536-1810. This index, was compiled from Betham’s Genealogical Abstracts, and as such can be viewed as the index to Betham’s Prerogative Wills Abstracts if not the other material contain in the collection.

Reference to Betham’s sketch pedigrees make it clear that he must have used other sources to supplement the Prerogative Abstracts as many of the families and/or individuals contained in his sketch pedigrees do not appear in Sir Arthur Vicars’ Index.

Park/e/s families from Betham’s ‘Sketch Pedigrees’: