Well, now you can find out! Over 41 million Wills have recently been made publically available through an online searchable database, including many well-known historical figures.
The records available include the likes of Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill and Beatrix Potter with the archive dating back some 150 years. Curiously, Charles Dickens funeral was documented as “an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner1” so perhaps he wouldn’t have anticipated his final wishes would eventually be made publically available.
As well as researching the last wishes of some highly influential individuals, many people are expected to use this as a tool to explore their own family history revealing the contents of their own ancestors’ Will’s following the rising popularity of online research into genealogy and ancestry.