According to her will, my ancestor Lizzie B. DUNWELL owned real estate "in the town of Fort Smith, Arkansas and in Sebastian County." The will was written in 1934, and she died in 1936 in St. Louis, Missouri. She left the real estate to her nephew, Rowland R. Dunwell. Does anyone know where I can find information about this land?Where is it, how big is it? How did she acquire it? (She never lived in Fort Smith.) What did Rowland Dunwell do with the land? (He lived in Ohio.) Thanks for any tips about how to find this information! Cindy

Probably the first thing you need to do is find out where the will was probated then go to where their records are kept and obtain a copy of the complete probate records. The will would have to be probated before the nephew could claim that property that is fully described (usually by deed number or similar) and then he would have to take a copy of the probated will to the probate court in Sebastian County, if the original probate was in another state, so they can probate the land to him. There is a lot of legal wrangling here such as where was the will drawn up, where did she die, was the will probated in her area or somewhere else, or was it probated at all? I am not sure but believe that where there is any estate over a certain amount to be settled, all states require the will to be probated properly before that estate can be passed to the will's proclaimed heirs. I am in the process of having my will drawn up here in Texas and even though my estate will be under the ! limit the lawyer says the will MUST be probated in order to name the executor(s) and then everything is turned over to them. I am quite sure most states have something similar which may have been in effect from about 1900 or so with the advent of "Death Estate Taxes" which also set the limit. Sparkgapper On Jul 6, 2011, at 4:11 PM, [email protected] wrote: > > According to her will, my ancestor Lizzie B. DUNWELL owned real estate "in the town of Fort Smith, Arkansas and in Sebastian County." > The will was written in 1934, and she died in 1936 in St. Louis, Missouri. She left the real estate to her nephew, Rowland R. Dunwell. > > Does anyone know where I can find information about this land?Where is it, how big is it? How did she acquire it? (She never lived in Fort Smith.) What did Rowland Dunwell do with the land? (He lived in Ohio.) > > Thanks for any tips about how to find this information! > > Cindy > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message