Do you know how inheritance “per stirpes” works?
Pretend that my second great-grandfather Habben died yesterday at the age of 166. He didn’t, but this is a thought exercise. His wife was already dead. He has descendants–including me.
His children are all deceased. His grandchildren are all deceased. Many of his great-grandchildren are deceased. To determine my share, per stirpes, we’d have to take a look at the family structure getting down to me.
Great-great-grandpa had five children–all of whom left descendants living today. So there’s an initial split five ways. One of those initial five children was my great-grandpa, Mimka whose branch of the family would get his fifth of the whole estate.
My great-grandpa had 7 children (including my Grandma Dot)–all are deceased, but only 6 of Mimka’s children have descendants, so his share gets split 6 ways. This means Grandma Dot’s family gets 1/30 of the estate.
Grandma Dot had three children–all deceased but only one has descendants living today (my Mom). Mom’s family would then still get 1/30 of the estate. My Mom has two children living meaning that we’d each get 1/60th of the estate.
I played this little game with another great-great-grandmother who I pretended died in 2025. In that case, I’d get 1/24 of the estate. She had three children who left descendants, my great-grandma had 4 children who left descendants, my granddad had 1 child who left descendants, and my Mom has two living children.
Kind of a fun little exercise to see if you know who in your family left descendants and who did not.
–Michael
This was recently posted to my Genealogy Tip of the Day page on Facebook and we’re sharing it here for others.
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