Becky M. Thank you. You're quite right. The primogeniture "card" hadn't occurred to me, and the will did say "divided equally among heirs". Mostly I think I was just complaining because the testator hadn't kept "us genealogists" in mind as he composed. Joe Lake Hi Joe, The will did serve the purpose to divide equally whatever personal property the testator had. The purpose of a will, then and now, is to have one's assets distributed as one wishes, not as the law directs. If the testator in question had done nothing, his eldest son would have inherited by operation of law anything he had. The term for that is primogeniture. The law in the colonies followed that prescription until we became the U.S. and then the operation of law was everything is divided equally. I've seen lots of Chancery cases where property was owned by someone who died intestate and sometimes as late as 20 to 30 years later one of the heirs sues for division. I crumbled two of my brick walls via Chancery cases, as enough time had elapsed so that not only children were mentioned, but if deceased, their children. And I found one of them as I was paging through a Chancery book and my greatgrandmother's name just leapt off the page. I would not have found this other than by accident. Becky M ________________________________