Normally a lawyer drew up a will for the testator and deposited a copy in the District Court House (Amtsgericht) for the area where the testator was living. The local authorities then notified the Civil Registry Office (Standesamt) in the district where the testator was born. When he died, the Standesamt in the place where he was living at the time of his death notified the Standesamt in his place of birth, and the latter notified the Court of Law of the location of the will for them to execute.
The original of the will should be deposited in either the District Court House (Standesamt), or the office of the Nachlassgericht, which is usually in the townhall (Rathaus), for the town where the testator lived at the time of his death, not where the testator died. Where property from various districts was involved, the will may be deposited in the State Archives (Staatarchiv).
Inheritance laws were rather specific about defining next-of-kin and ensured that all of them inherited equally. Thus, fewer people needed to write wills, especially if the testator was leaving his next-of-kin everything equally anyway. The patriarchal nature of Saxon society ensured that even fewer wives wrote wills.
Access to those wills that still exist is further complicated by the requirement that you must prove you are a direct descendant of the testator, if the will is less than 110 years old.
Where no will was deposited, the descendants had to prove their relationship to the deceased and supply all kinds of papers, from which a list of heirs was assembled. These papers were supposed to be kept, but they do not seem to be consistently retained in any particluar archive. In Austria by contrast, the list of heirs were retained indefinitely.
Saxon Genealogy
Copyright: ©1999 Jon Kehrer, Canberra