JRay38@neo.rr.com writes: > http://home.nc.rr.com/rwbaird/Misc/wills.htm#Intestates & Primogeniture That's a very good article, and confirms in detail what I had picked up in bits and pieces over the years, adding much besides. The one criticism I would make is there is no clear citation of sources (or evidence that it was based on original research) so it is not clear how to research the laws for estates where the basic rules might not apply -- eg substantial estate but no sons only daughters, or substantial estate + sons & widow, who remarries, and has falling out with sons &c. In one family, where there are wills, it is pretty clear that the father was trying to avoid the rule of primogeniture in each case, and this is consistent for 2 generations -- in one middle generation, the family patriarch died intestate & it's not completely clear what happened there. Would this suggest that this family was not English in origin and not used to the tradition of primogeniture, or did other Virginia families try to avoid this "eldest son inherits all" rule, hence the change in the law after the revolution? Also, is it clear what happens to the widow's life estate share? Suppose she needed to dispose of it -- did she have a right to sell, what about partition disputes &c? We have some cases like this & knowing what the rules were might help us figure out the sketchy records that we have been able to find. I am pretty sure in one case that a widow is trying to get something for her share (it's the intestate case above, where everything including date of death, estate content, and heirs are not completely sure). This is a fascinating topic & I think there is a lot in it for the genealogist. I have almost 300 years of probate cases I am working on, in different locales & under different laws, including a current one, and each one, slowly, reveals a lot of family mysteries (sometimes resolving them, sometimes only creating them :^)