Will tag

[pinidion 0]

K well this is quite a silly question but I'll ask it anyway. I've accumulated 5 wills and I decided to touch up my will tags and make them as specific as possible with regard to heirs and the relationship of the heir to the principal. I have defined a Male-Will tag and a Female-will tag which seems to help with the his/hers.

The principal role in the Male-Will tag reads as follows and you can see all the types of heirs I've given a role to.

 

[P] left a will <[D]><[L]>. The heirs were listed as follows <, his brother [RG:HeirBrother]><, his brothers [RG:HeirBrothers]><, his sister [RG:HeirSister]><, his sisters [RG:HeirSisters]><, his wife [RG:HeirWife]><, his son [RG:HeirSon]><, his sons [RG:HeirSons]><, his daughter [RG:HeirDaughter]><, his daughters [RG:HeirDaughters]><, his step son [R:HeirStepson]><, his step sons [R:HeirStepsons]><, his step daughter [R:HeirStepDaughter]><, his step daughters [R:HeirStepDaughters]><, his nephew [R:HeirNephew]><, his nephews [R:HeirNephews]><, his niece [R:HeirNiece]><, his nieces [R:HeirNieces]><, his grandson [R:HeirGrandson]><, his grandsons [R:HeirGrandsons]><, his granddaughter [R:HeirGrandDaughter]><, his granddaughters [R:HeirGrandDaughters]><, his cousin [R:HeirCousin]><, his cousins [R:HeirCousins]><, his brother-in-law [R:HeirBroInLaw]><, his brothers-in-law [R:HeirBrosInLaw]><, his sister-in-law [R:HeirSisInLaw]><, his sisters-in-law [R:HeirSistersInLaw]><, his son-in-law [R:HeirSonInLaw]><, his sons-in-law [R:HeirSonsInLaw]><, his daughter-in-law [R:HeirDaughtInLaw]><, his daughters-in-law [R:HeirDaughtsInLaw]>. <[M1]>

 

This works quite well but I always get an output sentence like this:

 

Ioannis Begakis left a will on 28 Feb 1904 at Chios. The heirs were listed as follows, his sons Stavros, Petros and Michalis, his daughter Irini. (MEMO here)

 

Notice after Mihalis and the last heir I get a comma and not an and.

I don't know how to rectify this other than creating a zillion more roles such as

daughterlast,daughterslast,sonlast,sonslast. Does anyone have any idea how I can fix this? Or am I just overlooking the obvious? I haven't created roles yet for executor or executor+heir... I may do it, I may not but thats an issue for another day. I'm afraid to start as I'll have to rework the Principal sentence to include them and it's difficult enough now.

 

thanks guys! I appreciate

[Terry Reigel 0]

This is one of the problems with trying to create such sentences that accomodate all possible combinations of participants - they don't do it very well.

 

The problem, as you recognize, is that you can't forsee which role will be last in any given will. Nor can you forsee every possible relationship that will occur, nor combinations of the, such as the same person being both a son (wife, daughter, brother, brother-in-law, etc.) and executor.

 

In my view the solution is to remove all those roles from the Principal sentence and substitute just [M]. Then, in the memo enter text that actually works well for the particular will. For example, in this case I'd enter:

 

"He listed as heirs his sons [RG:HeirSon], and his daughter [RG:HeirDaughter]. He specified...."

 

This method allows you great flexibility, since you can accomodate any sort of relationship that might occur, including obscure relationships, step relatives, employees, friends, or whatever. You can also include "mentions" as well as heirs (common with transcriptions when you don't have the real will) and to weave in specific bequests if you like.

 

It also makes the wording of heir-executor roles work better. With the method you are using, how would you work in one of several sons being an executor? You really can't. But it's easy if you custom write the text in the memo as I've described. For example:

 

"He named his wife, [R:Heir & executor], and eldest son, [RF:Heir & executor2] as executors, and named as heirs his others sons, [RG:HeirSon], and his daughter [RG:HeirDaughter]. He specified...."

 

Further, you don't need all the possible roles. Create the more common ones, then create some generic ones, like Heir1, Heir2, etc, for use with the more rare relationships. In the sentences for those roles, use the Witness memo to describe the relationship, rather than trying to put it in the sentence.

 

See my article on Will tags for some details. The same concept is used in my article on Census tags.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

Or just have a role called HEIRLAST and use it for the person you want "and ...."

[Terry Reigel 0]

Or just have a role called HEIRLAST and use it for the person you want "and ...."

Teresa, how do you get the relationship to print then, both in the principal's sentence and the heir's sentence?

 

Even if you add it to a memo segment, this still doesn't solve any of the other issues I mentioned (i.e. obscure relationships, combinations of roles, and one of several persons with the same relationship having multiple roles).

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

I have individual Role N roles for that reason. If you just want His heirs are John, Sally, Billy Bob, and Ruth, it works.

[pinidion 0]

I wanted to thank you all for your input. What I finally decided on was

 

heir In the will of <[WM1], >[P1], < dated [D]>, [W] was listed as an heir.<[WM2]>

 

executor In the will of <[WM1], >[P1], < dated [D]>, [W] was listed as an executor.<[WM2]>

 

and executor & heir In the will of <[WM1], >[P1], < dated [D]>, [W] was listed as both an executor and heir.<[WM2]>

 

in WM1, i state the relationship to principal and WM2 has the info

 

for principal i went with a simple [P] left a will <[D]><[L]>. <[M]>

what I don't like is that I have to type in the heir names & relationships but at least this way it keeps things simple.

 

What I wanted to ask was do you generally enter what the testator gave away in his memo tag or do you enter it in the memos of his heirs? Right now I have

in the heirs' memos

1. what they received & their relationship to testator

in the testators memo

1. the names of the heirs & their relation to him/her (family & non)

2. the executors & their relation along with executors+heirs & their relation

 

And another interesting note, after spending nearly 6 hours translating a 110 yr old will from OLD Greek into English.. I noticed at the end it had a note (codicil I guess it's called?) that stated the will had been revoked and a new one rewritten a yr and a half later (GRRRRRR) on the bright side, I know exactly where to look for the new will just a few pages down from the old one. Thank goodness someone took the effort to bind them and put them in archives! Well not sure if I should even add the information from the old will, right now I have.. noting of course the date of the new one... Is this appropriate?

 

thanks guys, you are are so knowledgable & wonderful, my simple 1500 person tree

seems pathetic to some of yours!

Deb

[Terry Reigel 0]

I wanted to thank you all for your input.

You're welcome.

What I wanted to ask was do you generally enter what the testator gave away in his memo tag or do you enter it in the memos of his heirs?

It really depends on how interesting it is. I ususally put a general summary in the testator's memo, generally describing what he gave to "his children" or whatever in a blanket statement. I often put the specifics in each heir's WM.

... I noticed at the end it had a note (codicil I guess it's called?) that stated the will had been revoked and a new one rewritten a yr and a half later ... Well not sure if I should even add the information from the old will, right now I have.. noting of course the date of the new one...

I'd think what you mainly want is the terms of the new will. But then I'd want to look at the differences, and see if there is anything interesting there. If so, I'd add some comments about that. But if it was just a route updating to reflect new-born heirs or death of old ones, I'd probably ignore the first one.

[GenerationGoneBy 0]

I would because once you get the codicil, it will probably only add new children. The older will, while not the one probated, will probably have information that will not be in the new one.

 

My great grandmother's will was contested. I still have the full will and then the papers on the contesting of the will. Makes for interesting reading.

[Terry Reigel 0]

I would because once you get the codicil, it will probably only add new children. The older will, while not the one probated, will probably have information that will not be in the new one.

From what he said, it's not a codicil. He said the note says "the will had been revoked and a new one rewritten" - that's not a codicil which changes or adds a few terms, but rather a whole new will.