Short answer. Yes. Once a lost or destroyed will is proved, the judge must certify its provisions under the seal of the court, distinctly stating what those provisions are, and that certificate is filed and recorded in the same way any other proved will is filed and recorded, so the outcome carries the same formal record.
What the law says
When a lost will is proved, the provisions thereof must be distinctly stated and certified by the judge, under the seal of the court, and the certificate must be filed and recorded as other wills are filed and recorded.
Rule 76, Section 6 — Proof of lost or destroyed will. Certificate thereupon. Read the full provision →
What it takes to prove a lost or destroyed will
A will that has been lost or destroyed is not automatically out of reach. It can still be proved, but only under a demanding set of conditions: its execution and validity must be established, it must be shown to have existed at the time of the testator's death or to have been fraudulently or accidentally destroyed during the testator's lifetime without the testator's knowledge, and its provisions must be clearly and distinctly proved by at least two credible witnesses. Each of these elements has to be satisfied before the court will treat the lost will as proved at all.
Certification once the will is proved
Once those conditions are met and the lost will is proved, the process does not end with a bare finding that the will existed. The judge must distinctly state the will's provisions and certify them under the seal of the court. This certificate stands in for the physical document that was lost or destroyed — it is the court's own record of what the will actually said, based on the testimony that proved it. Certification is not a transcript of the testimony; it is the judge's distilled statement of the provisions themselves, distinctly stated, which is what makes it usable as a record of the will.
Filing and recording like any other will
That judicial certificate is then filed and recorded in exactly the same way as other wills are filed and recorded, rather than being handled as some lesser or separate category of record. This means a lost will, once proved through witness testimony and certified by the judge, ends up with the same formal recognition in the court's records as a will that was physically produced and probated in the ordinary way — the certificate simply takes the place of the missing original. From that point on, anyone dealing with the estate can rely on the recorded certificate the way they would rely on a recorded will.