Where there's a will

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks | Week 9

#52ancestors

Catherine Elizabeth Simpson
mother of Eva Dow

This week’s theme is ‘Where there’s a will’. The natural end to this sentence is ‘…there’s a way’. And this rings very true for family historians who are well known for their determined pursuit of their ancestors, believing that if they want it badly enough and work hard enough, they will find the answer. And sometimes the will is the way to the answer and was definitely the document that helped me progress two challenges in my research, one with spectacular results. This is not so much the story of a particular ancestor, but the story of how I found the faces to go with the names of numerous ancestors.

I have two spinster great-aunts in my family tree (on different branches). Both had purportedly not married due to having lost their beaus in World War I. Both cared for their aging parents and continued to live in the respective family homes for an extended period of time after the deaths of their parents. It seemed to me that there must have been a treasure trove of valuable family memorabilia in those homes and I was determined to try to track it down by identifying who had inherited their estates. This information would be contained in their wills. However, despite thorough searching of the wills and intestacies at the Queensland State Archives, I could not locate a will. Inquiries to the Public Trustee similarly yielded no results. The dates of death for the aunts was within the privacy period so I could not request their death certificates and, even if I could have, these documents were unlikely to give the information I was seeking.

John Simpson, father of
Catherine Elizabeth Simpson

I did know the addresses of the homes, and believed that the transfer of ownership and subsequent owner’s name would be listed on the title to the property. Titles for both properties were quickly and easily retrieved by Titles Office staff. Both indicated transmission by death and provided the details of the documents associated with those transactions. I requested copies of those records and, after several weeks of not so patient waiting, was rewarded with a full copy of the will and death certificate for both ladies. I now knew who inherited the estates

Knowing the names of the inheritors I was able to pursue the chain of inheritance. In the case of Auntie Eva, the estate was inherited by a relative to whom I have been extremely close throughout my life and upon asking, she told me that she did have a large box of old photos ‘somewhere in the garage’. This box, when retrieved, was the bonanza of which all family historians dream. It contained over 300 photos dating back to the 1880s and included images of ancestors never seen before. Miraculously, nearly all of them had names written on the back; many of the others were identifiable based on knowledge of the family and by comparison to other photos. In this case, my will combined with Auntie Eva’s will, proved to most definitely be the way to not only solve a research challenge, but to ‘meet’ myriad ancestors face-to-face.

POSTSCRIPT: Sadly, I was not so successful in tracking down Aunt Annie’s estate. She left “her all” to her “dear friend … in appreciation and grateful thanks for all the kindness and help she has bestowed upon me during our years of happy friendship”. It was lovely to know that this family member with whom contact had been lost had someone caring for her but sad to know that her treasures had passed out of the family. Unfortunately, the friend had also passed away by the time I found the information and despite very willful efforts, no relatives have been able to be located and alas that potential lode of family memorabilia may be lost for all time.