Genealogy Chat

See below - it's too complicated to put in a garbled thread-header.

I've just had a real justification for all my alleged time-frittering on this obsessive hobby! An e-mail from my husband's cousins, whose mother died a couple of weeks ago - knowing about this hobby of mine, they thought I might be able to help. They needed to know... 1. The number of aunts and uncles my aunt-in-law had who pre-deceased her. This has to be specified us “number under 18 years on their death” and “number 18 years or over on their death”. 2. The number of children of these aunts and uncles who survived my aunt-in-law. The answer to Q1 was 9 + 3, of whom 2 died young. The answer to Q2 was there were at least 16, probably 20 plus whatever another (2nd) cousin, also 'genealogising', comes up with on her bit of the family. None particularly known to have died young, but all believed to have died before my aunt-in-law. How many people can just come up with that kind of detailed, historical information for a bureaucratic form?! Especially under the stress of bereavement. Christine

I knew this hobby would come in handy one day lol. Jean x.

Ive seen in my solicitors office a family tree on the wall where they had to track down over a hundred people and dish out portions like 1/32 and the like.

I must admit - it did alert me to the value of the modern bits on Ancestry. Some of the first names are quite unusual, so added into knowing whereabouts they were likely to be, I was able to identify some more births and deaths for that bit of tree. The modern deaths give a DoB. Normally a common surname would be a problem, but the married names weren't common, so I could work backwards from the death record to a name+maiden name with DoB to confirm what I was looking for. As you say, It is good to be able to show this hobby has some uses! Christine

My Dad, his siblings and three cousins inherited some money when my Grandfather's half sister died in the early sixties. It took the solicitors firm over 3 years to track them all down. I found out the details of this when my cousin sent me a copy of the paperwork at the beginning of this year. Since then I have found that the money should have been split with another two cousins who nobody knew about. I am so pleased that this has only taken me six years but I've got a pile more second cousins than I knew about and I'm in contact with them!

Christine I take it Aunt-in-law died intestate? A good reminder for everyone to make a Will! My ex's uncle died intestate. He never married nor had any children. He came from a huge family. It took the Solicitor nearly seven years to sort out a family tree with nearly 300 people on it. He only left a pittance anyway and by the time the Solicitor had his dibs, we got £6!!! Kick myself time though - this was years ago, we read the family tree with some interest - and then I THREW IT AWAY. Olde Crone

OC Why not check with the solicitor and see if they retained a copy of the family tree in their records? Beth :)

My husband's father had an aunt who died intestate but left a house and some money. These were divided amongst her surviving siblings and their children. My father-in-law did indeed receive one 32th of the final amount and the solicitor enclosed a tree which was useful! It is a load of tosh though. My uncle died intestate and I had to go to a solicitor & commissioner for oaths and swear that my father was my uncle's brother. The solicitor got £5 for this and if my father had been a con man, I could quite easily have been a con man's daughter. nell

I must say, I did wonder why they needed this info - I shouldn't have thought she'd have died intestate - the whole family too well-educated and business-aware to have missed out on the importance... Except that my father could easily have died intestate, and he was also well-educated. I suppose there's a lingering superstition for a lot of people, along with procrastination. We have Wills, but they were made a long time ago and really should be updated. Christine

I certainly agree with updating wills. My fathers estate was quite straight forward and is still taking ages to sort. Yes, I am also glad that this is my hobby and I had loads of certificates to produce for the solicitor. If you havent made a will or it needs updating, do it now. Especially if you have dependants.