Thanks ever so much for that info, Sue. As you know I 've only been doing family research for just over a year & the last visit to IOM we looked mainly at births & marriages films & spent many wet & windy visits to Arbory & Malew graveyards. Because one side of my family were just ordinary, scraping a living type workers - tenant farmers, fishermen etc I didn't think to look at wills because I didn't think the people would have anything to leave - now I know that even furniture could be left in wills. I assume (OK, never assume anything!) that the Museum has all these wills on films or in books. All parish registers have now been left at the museum & not kept in the churches, haven't they ?
I've looked at Brian's list but NONE of my lot, from the names I have, are transcribed on it. The nearest FHS to us is an hour's drive away - maybe this summer we will get there during the day when it is still open. Last phone call nobody seemed to know much about it As always your reply has been helpful.