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Where There's a Will There's a Way Tree

By Nick Wooster and Jan Young Baker

With the passing of Margaret Lewis (nee Wooster) in 2024 Jan informed us that the Great Wooster Tree required updating. Jan is daughter-in-law of Valerie (Margaret's sister) in Canada. On the GWT we still had Valerie and Margaret's older half-sisters Pam and Joan as being alive, but Jan told us that Pam died ca. 2011 and she was also sure Joan had died recently.
Strangely there seemed to be no death record for Pam, but a very probable record for Joan. The death index had a Joan Evelyn Martindale, DOB 29 Dec 1932, died 18 Nov 2020. That would appear to be right since Joan's birth index entry is 1933 Q1, but now comes the curveball...... location, Blackburn, Lancashire. We knew her husband David died in 2019 and we knew they lived at Hilton Avenue in Dunstable, so Blackburn did cast a doubt.
Two potential ways of solving this would be either the death certificate or better, her birth certificate, but neither available digitally. At this point we had a Eureka moment! Remembering a long forgotten resource, namely the UK Government's Find a Will website (https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate).
Searching this found both Joan and Pam's Wills at a very low cost of £1.50 per Will (now £16... that's some inflation!). Unlike a few years ago when we last used this website, when it took a few weeks before the documents were available, these were fully digitised and available instantly, giving both the Will and Grant of Probate.
These documents confirmed Jan's knowledge of Pam's death and confirmed Joan's death in Blackburn. The Will also answered our doubts about the location by revealing a third child of Joan's who was not on the GWT and for whom there was no birth record. However, a search on Ancestry found him on the Electoral Rolls living in Blackburn! So there is an explanation, as maybe after David's death Joan went to live with her son in Blackburn.
The reason for the non-existent birth record was also figured out when Jan said that they lived in Australia for a while and the timing would very much suggest that he was born in Australia.
The motto, Wills can be just as valuable a resource as birth, marriage and death certificates. I doubt that they are all available and maybe not all are digital, but it is well worth checking.

A family gathering at Tile Kiln Farm during a visit from Australia. From the left: David Martindale, Joan Martindale (nee Wooster) with their children in front. Pam Kent (nee Wooster) with her children in front. Standing are Pam's husband Laurence Kent and Margaret Wooster (Lewis) with Margaret's sister Rosemary driving the tractor


Footnote: Valerie also recently passed away: Tree

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  Page last updated

  07 June 2026