🔍 Archway-style Collections Search

For further information please contact: Research Services, Archives New Zealand Head Office, PO Box 12 050, Wellington NEW ZEALAND.

Probate 473 in box 11 has been identified as needing Special Handling by Preservation Services. This item has been water damaged and care needs to be taken not to separate the pages that have been fused together.

The High Court of New Zealand has had sole jurisdiction over probate since its inception in 1841.

Probate files contained all the legal information required for the granting of probate on a will - so usually included a copy of the deceased person's will. Not everyone who made a will had a probate file. If a person died without making a will, then there might be a file of Letters of Administration, containing the legal documentation required to administer the deceased person's estate. A person’s will was usually probated through the High Court nearest to where they were living before their death. A person might be registered more than once.

Probates in this series were registered in a sequence of running numbers, from 1 in 1843 to 66,490 in December 1939. The successor series uses the same system of classification, from 1 in January 1940 to 22,082 in December 1946. From January 1947, this series of probates were given an annual single number system of classification, starting at number 1 each year.

• 🗄 Wellington probate files [second sequence] (1940 - )

• 🏢 Wellington High Court (1843 - 1939)

• 🗄 Wellington Probate registers