re: "Russ, that argument doesn't fly--check the date he signed the will--he only wrote the will on May 3rd 1779 and died three days later. So the will was very current--not an old will." -------- Do we know how Christian died? Is it possible that he was very ill, knew it, and there was some very important (to him) item that he felt needed to be changed, knowing that death was imminent? Going along with the theory that the children were taken care of - maybe the mention of wife Christina didn't matter all that much to him at that time. Maybe this was done in haste? If this is true - there must have been something quite interesting in his old will! Debbie