This page is intended as a reference point for people researching the Wills Family.
It provides links to web pages that include information about members of the Wills Family plus titles of books and CD's that contain similar information. The list of landmarks with the Wills name may be of interest to some viewers.

If you are aware of a suitable reference web page or book for our library please send a "Letter to the Editor" or at least an email, providing details of the item.
Sharing information is a productive way to obtain more research and ensure that others can use your research.

Software for you to record your Family Tree.

•   RootsMagic - Software to Unite Families. An updated version of PAF.
•   Personal Ancestral File (PAF). Long standing Family History software. Development has now ceased.
•   Gramps is the best LINUX genealogy software. It is also used by cattle and pet breeders and on any other thing that needs to trace generations.
•   TreeView Mobile. You will have your family history at your fingertips
•   Reunion, the family tree software for Macintosh, iPhone, and iPad.

Web links - with Wills information.

•  The Origin and History of the Wills Surname.
•  How to spell Wills - The many ways that researchers find the name Wills spelt.
•  Information Wanted
•  An index of 500 Wills Unassisted Immigration to Victoria by ship from England, New Zealand and Foreign Ports. This index is from 1852 - 1923.
•  State Records NSW Click on "Search our on-line indexes"
•  This Wills family migrated to North America and Australia from the county of Devon.
•  Wills Families History in Devon, UK
•  Wills Family Genealogy Forum An excellent American Discussion page.
•  Scottish Wills Marriages 1716 - 1949 sorted by year
•  In the Tracks of Burke and Wills
•  Extracts from books relative to our ancestors.
•  Wills Surnames - Admissions Maryborough, Vic and District Hospital - 1865 - 1970
•  A list of Wills' that worked as gold miners in Central Victoria.
•  A Wills Pedigree Get-to-gether was held on 9 March 2003 in Melbourne, Vic.
•  John Wills - information required of these Wills soldiers.
•  This article from the Illustrated London News - Saturday, February 1, 1862 - headed The Burke and Wills Exploring Expedition will print as eight pages on A4 size paper using Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download Adobe Acrobat Reader from this site.
•  A list of Wills's listed on the 1856 Victorian Electoral Roll.
•  A list of Wills Surname Index South Australia (Adelaide) Census 1841.
•  Electoral List Sandhurst & Districts 1856 of Wills, Wells and Willis.
•  Port Phillip District 1849 Electoral Roll Wills surname and variants.
•  Wills Surname Index for the South Australia (Adelaide) Census 1841 plus Assisted Immigrants arrivals.
•  Ballarat and District Pioneers and Old Residents Directory 1837-1855
•  Wills Surname Immigrant Index for Port Phillip, 1839-1896
•  John Wills, b. 1825, Heidelberg, Melbourne
•  Wills, Frederick Charles (1870 - 1955) artist and photographer
•  Wills, Sir Kenneth Agnew (1896 - 1977) army officer and businessman
•  Wills, Horatio Spencer Howe (1811 - 1861) pastoralist and politician
•  Wills, Thomas Wentworth Spencer (1835 - 1880) cricketer and footballer
•  Wills, William John (1834 - 1861) explorer
•  An Eulogy to the late Dick Wills of Narracombe Farm, Ilsington, Devon. He researched his Wills family from the age of 17 until he died at the age of 81 in 2003. As webmaster I well remember the first email I received from Dick. Part of the email reads as follows :-
  
  When my nephew was in Australia, asking the way to Port Fairy he was told there were two people in the neighbourhood called Wills who were interested in family history. He found out that they were descendants of Thomas Henry Brock Wills of Kingsteignton, near Newton Abbot our local market town here, who disappeared from off the face of the earth in the middle of the 19th.century !!
  Apparently he had emigrated to Australia in 1860 and his descendants now form an entirely new branch of the Wills family. It adjoins our Lustleigh branch and slightly overlaps it and like us its extended family farmed most farms in the Kingsteignton, Bishopsteignton and Ideford areas.
  Almost like two distinct civilisations from different planets getting together !

Web links - other information.

Books & CD's.

•  Ancestor Treasure Hunt, by Richard Pokley - Published April, 1976 - The Edward Wills Family and Descendants in Australia 1797 - 1976. In PDF format for downloading.
•  The Currency Lad by T.S. Wills Cooke. A biography of Horatio Spencer Howe Wills, 1811 to 1861 and the story of his immediate family 1797 to 1918, using contemporary letters, documents, daguerreotypes, paintings and photographs.
•  Ancestor Treasure Hunt- The Edward Wills Family & Descendants in Australia 1797-1976 (may be out of print)
•  The Registrars of Births, Deaths & marriages, in most states, have produced a CD set containing the index of births, deaths, marriages for their state. Contact them for details.
•  Yellow Pages Telephone Directory.   Many books around the country contain a category for Genealogy listing Family History Centres or Genealogy processing businesses. The listings in your directory may know of others researching the Wills family.
•  "The Book of Ilsington", is a hardback with about 170 pages including 365 photographs and a text describing a typical Dartmoor village with its history, and life during the last 100 years, at a time when the Wills family farmed 50 per cent of the farms in the parish. The publishers were Halsgrove publishing at www.halsgrove.com
•  Track number 9 on the CD "Dust on my Shoes" by "Mick Thomas and the Sure Thing" contains a song in memory of Tom Wills the sportsman. Mick Thomas is on www.mickthomas.com, it was produced by www.croxtonrecords.com.
•  Sport and Racing in Colonial Melbourne and subtitled The Cousins and Me; Colden Harrison, Tom Wills and William Hammersley.
  Basically the biographies of those three men to form a history of early sport in Melbourne - 1850s to 1880s, it was published in 2004 by Lynedoch Publications, Melbourne, and consists of 485 pages, has an index, bibliography, end-notes, and many contemporary illustrations. It is available from libraries, most good bookshops and Lynedoch Publications, 40 Brighton Street, Richmond 3121. ISBN 0 646 46960 6.
•  Cullin-la-Ringo : the triumph and tragedy of Tommy Wills by Les Perrin, Book, Bib ID 493059, Publisher McDowall, Qld., 1998. ISBN 0646360337 : Subject Wills, Thomas, - 1835-1880. - Pioneers - Australia - Biography. - Cricket players - Australia - Australian football - History. - Cullin-la-Ringo (Qld.) - Massacres.
•  Tom Wills : his spectacular rise and tragic fall by Greg de Moore - Book - Bib ID 4352302 - Book Publisher Crows Nest, N.S.W. : Allen and Unwin, 2008. - ISBN 9781741754995 (pbk.)
  "Tom Wills has been acknowledged by the AFL as the most significant founder of Australian Rules football. In 2008, Round 19 of the AFL season has been named the 'Tom Wills Round'. He was Honorary Secretary of the Melbourne Cricket Club, played cricket for Melbourne, Collingwood, Richmond and Geelong Cricket Clubs, captained most teams he played with, and represented Victoria in intercolonial cricket matches.
  He played cricket into his 40s. He played and umpired football for Melbourne and Geelong. Tom Wills was born in 1835 and died in 1880. He was born on a sheep run on the Molonglo River, 180 miles southwest of Sydney. His family moved to a property near Geelong, and later bought a station at Cullin-la-Ringo in Queensland.
  Tom was schooled at Rugby School in England, sent there at 14 and returning to Australia at 21 in 1856. While there, he excelled at cricket, and this lead to his international reputation as a cricketer playing for Australia.
  He died in Melbourne in 1880, stabbing himself to death. He was an alcoholic and despite coming from a very well-to-do family, he died destitute." -- Provided by publisher.