Genealogy Chat

Hi,
This question comes from watching too many episodes of "Heir Hunters".

A single mum had two children, each by different fathers. The father of the first child and his wife adopt the first child. Years later the single mum marries the first child’s father who is now divorced. The father dies and then several years later she dies. Whose is the beneficiary of any estate?

Herbert

I'm by no means certain but I would think the second child will inherit, as once the first child has been adopted by another woman he is no longer the son of his "birth" mother (unless she adopted him after her marriage to the father).

Kath. x

Depends on what the mothers will says :-)

In the absence of any will, I would agree with Kath.

Sam x

Hi Kathleen,
That's the same conclusion I reached but only in the case that no will had been made. However, if a will had been made could the first child be named as the sole beneficiary so bypassing any relationship difficulty. What rights if any, would the second child then have?


Thanks Sam. It's complicated isn't it.

Thanks
Herbert

If she left a will, then she could leave her money to anyone she wished to. The second child could contest the will if he wanted to, but he probably wouldn't get anywhere .

Kath. x

Hi Kath,
So it seems that for the first child to inherit any estate one of two things would need to happen.

1. If the child had been adopted by his mum and dad after their marriage.
2. Subject to the wishes laid down in her will.

A poor lad today was heartbroken that he did not inherit from his dad as his mum and her new husband had adopted him. However the cause of his upset was of course his biological father had not left a will.

Thanks
Herbert

Hi Chris,
The problem for the first child is that when he was adopted his biological mother lost all rights to him and he became the child of his father and his wife. He could inherit any estate from this family.
The fly in the ointment here is that his biological mum married his father some 25 years later. This leads me to think that it was unlikely for them to re-adopt him. His father was still his father and his mother was his biological mother.

As they say on Heir Hunters, 50% of people do not write wills and may families automatically believe that estates pass down to them automatically.

Many thanks for your thoughts.

Herbert

Hi Karen,

I don't know whether or not the first child was ever adopted (a second time) by his mum after she married his dad.
I do know that the dad left a will leaving the bulk of his estate to his son, child1.

So far no problem, he was the son of his biological and adopted father.

Up to what age can you adopt a person? Child 1 was over 21 years of age when his mum married his dad so I would think that being over 21 he would be considered an adult and no longer a child and therefore could not be adopted again. But I'm probably wrong.

Whether the mum left a will is unknown but I am very tempted to do a Probate search to find out.

When will we get the answer? I' don't know. I'm hoping there may be some legal eagles or someone who has been in similar circumstances who can tell me.

Many thanks
Herbert