Here's my first bash at it, Sue. Some of the missing bits could be guessed at, but they would only be guesses so I have left dots. The ??? are things I haven't deciphered. In the name of god Amen. The fifteenth day of August in the year... Upton Lovell in the County of Wiltes widdow aged and at thys tim[e]... remembrance and understanding the lord bee praised.) doe make and ordaine... in manner and forme following. First I commend my soule into the handes... and stedfast hope of remission of all my sinnes through the merits and obedience of ... my body I commit to the earth in sure and undoubted expectation of resurrect... eternal life Touching my wordly goods, I doe thus dspose them. First I give and bequeath unt... ...stopher Mogge my sonne one ewe. It[e]m I give and bequeath unto John Mogge my sonne one ewe. Item I give unto Thomas (Y?)emens my sonne in law one ewe. It[e]m I give unto Elzabeth Ide my daughter my b[es]t cow & my best [g]owne and to her daughter Mary Ide all my other wearing apparrell. Item I give and bequeath unto (Luce?) ..e my grandchild two ewes and twenty shillings w[hi]ch mony my will is that it remaine w?? ??? ?? ???? ...???? to bee put to the best use for her untill shee bee eighteene yeares of age ??? ??? ??? exec... (will?) is that the said mony remain to the use of her brother Hugh(?) Ide. Item ..... ...??? unto my daugter Agnes Mogge twenty shillings. The residue of my goods unbeque... ??? ???? unto Edith Mogge my daughter whom I make nominate and appoint sole execu[trix] and ?? testament and of the execution whereof I appoint John M(aton?) and Robert ??? overseers In witnes whereof I have hereunto sett my hand and seale the day and year ab[ov]e writ... in the presence of these whose names are under written [Underneath there are three columns of text: on the left, the witnesses:] Signed sealed and published in the presence of Thomas Hickman (Roberte?) Hillman R M [the mark of Rob.. Moore] [in the centre, a Latin blurb about probate, which I will have to leave until I'm more awake] [on the right] the mark of Edith Mogge, the testatrix P.S. tried to put an 'I' and 'B' in square brackets (to indicate I've inferred them) but text editor thinks I meant italic and bold. Too late to try to figure out how to override that, so I have removed the square brackets.
Crikey, thanks so much. I have a spreadsheet with the Moggs of Upton Lovell and Shrewton listed. There is definitely a Christopher of the right time and I did not know who his parents were. I need to assimilate this into that. The whole thing is so feint, I don't know how you did it. I have other wills that mention Christopher Mogg, one is his and one is his son John's. Oh and I think I have the inventory that went with this.
You need to leave a gap either side of the letter in between the brackets i.e. Chr[ i ]stopher or like th[ i ]s
Seeing as I have difficulty reading my own handwriting, I think it is so amazing that someone can read 'ye olde stuffe'. Well done Huncamunca.
Leaving out the bits where my Latin is too rusty to know what the correct endings should be, I think the bit about probate (the middle paragraph under the main body of the will) reads as follows: Probat.. cora[m] ve[nerabi]li Henrico Hung[er]ford artiu[m] m[agist]ro off... d[omi]niArch... Saru[m] 22o 8bris 162(1?)Comissa... fuit(?) which means something like Proved before the venerable HenryHungerford, Master of Arts, official(?) of the LordArch... of Sarum, 22nd October 162(1?)
This will was one of those I collected last weekend and in addition I have two sets of documents (Wills or Admons) each with two dates as follows: John Mogg 1603 and 1735 and Christopher Mogg 1635 and1735. Could it be possible Huncamunca that neither will was proved or administered for John or Christopher and then along came Thomas Mogg (a Thomas is mentioned in both) who then got the legalities sorted? I don't understand though, why the estates would not have been settled at the time. And this one which you transcribed for me was for Edith, who was Christopher's mother and I now think John's wife. Does any of that make sense?
I haven't seen such a long delay before, Blackmogs, but it looks like something that the executor or administrators should have done still hadn't been done by 1735. By then the original executors/administrators would have been long dead. Perhaps someone else in the family was granted administration to deal with some property or something that had been overlooked earlier? I had a look on the Wiltshire 'Wills Search' website. Have you got copies of all the Upton Lovell ones? For example, there's an 1736 administration bond for John Mogg of Upton Lovell (P2/M/1001), which may be significant. If you can upload copies of any of the documents you have, I'd be happy to take a look at them. If they don't explain what was happening, you may need to get copies of some of the other documents from Wiltshire.
I have all of the Upton Lovell wills for the Moggs including that one! Given the amount of aggro I had last night - resolved by Terry it make take me a while to get them into here. At the moment all are just photocopies, so I firstly need to go to the local library to get them scanned into the computer. I don't think photographing them will work. So, I will get back to you.
Should have done this earlier. If you want a darker (more contrast) version Blackmogs there is one here. http:// anguline.co.uk/images/man/will.jpg Cheers Guy
It is very easy, I just opened it in Adobe Photoshop and clicked on Image - Adjustments - Brightness/Contrast and changed the settings there. Photoshop is a good program for easily manipulating images. For instance http:// anguline.co.uk/images/man/willinvert.jpg Shows the dark image with the "colours" inverted i.e. the black now becomes white. This sometimes allows text to read more easily. It is also good for viewing scans of black and white film negatives. The full program is expensive but earlier versions can be bought at a reasonable price and there are really good cut down versions with fewer bells and whistles at a reasonable price also. Cheers Guy
Much appreciated. I have Photoshop Elephants 10 - I wonder whether it will work in there. I will have a play. (Always known as elephants in this house for some bizarre reason)
Guy is such a handyman to have in tow, isn't he? for all of those tips we forget until we need them. Not to mention those we never had before.
