Isn't this sad?

[Little Nell]

Husband's father got some money from a deceased cousin who died intestate and left a sizeable bit. The solicitors sorting it out sent a family tree (very badly drawn up, if you ask me, with lines crossing and making it hard to work out who belongs to which generation). Anyway, the sad bit is that he has an aunt who presumably died young - doesn't mention husband, but does have her married name. Anyway it lists her 2 children as one named daughter (who may still be alive so haven't posted name) and - and I quote -

"Adopted by someone after death of mother"

so this poor child doesn't have a sex or name or birthdate and presumably disappeared so didn't get his/her entitlement to the estate.

[LangleyValeSue]

I remember watching a programme one morning on BBC1, I think it was 'Heir Hunters' or something similar. There was a sizeable sum at stake from a man who died intestate, and the researchers found that he had a son. Unfortunately this son was not entitled to a penny of his Dad's money as, after his parents relationship/marriage broke down, he was adopted by his mother's new husband. I remember thinking how sad it was, as the son was just a child when his mother married again, and he had recently found his birth father and was in regular contact with him again. The birth father died before making a will, and despite apparently telling his birth son that he would inherit, the law was quite clear that he couldn't as he had been adopted by his mother's new husband.

I hope that makes sense. I just re-read it and I'm not sure I understand what I have written - and I saw the programme ;)

[deletejb]

I watched 'Heir Hunters' as well Sue the episode you spook about did seem unfair. I did wonder at the time if the law just applies to English Law and what happens in the same situation here in Scotland.

[Anne in Carlisle]

The moral of this is
make a will!!!

Anne

[Little Nell]

OH gosh, yes Anne. Except that the woman in question might have left it all to one person, whereas this way 140 people each got a bit! The family tree the solicitors drew up is maddening as it doesn't have any dates or even who on the tree is dead, so I've had to deduce things and of couse most of the births and marriages are post-Freebmd's cut-off point. But it is a start.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Nell

Pretty sure that legal adoption means that the person is no longer entitled to claim on the birth family.

I should think the "adopted by someone" is the legal way of not disclosing any identifying information about the adoptee.

OC

[Little Nell]

Yes, OC, but what I find sad is not that this child didn't inherit any money, but that she seems to have been completely separated from the family and I'm puzzled that the other daughter seems not to have been adopted. Of course she may have been grown up or working in service anyway but it seems awful she was split from her brother/sister - and I presume father either also dead or unable to care.

Without this tree I wouldn't have known of this child's existence, which makes me wonder how many other "lost" relatives there are out there.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Nell

I'm just re eading Road to Nab End, about the author's impoverished childhood in the 1920s in Blackburn, Lancs.

The author did a paper round for a childless couple who wanted to adopt him:

"Father was agreeable but mother, AFTER THINKING ABOUT IT, said no".

I think possibly in earlier years, adoption was viewed differently by the poor, as an opportunity for the child that they couldn't give themselves, not as a rejection of a child they didn't want.

OC

[Little Nell]

I guess I'll never know. And of course the adopted child in this case might have had a great life and the one who wasn't not!

I just found it surprising that given the extensive number of aunts/uncles and cousins on her mother's side (and presumably someone on her father's side) that they didn't take this child in. Maybe they looked after the daughter and couldn't manage another child, who knows.