A relative died in the 1950s with no children or descendants. The relative had no siblings so their only heirs were the descendants of their maternal and paternal grandparents. A grandchild of the paternal grandparents was the administrator of the estate.
The list of heirs failed to list those who descended from the paternal grandfather’s second marriage. That second marriage resulted in a half-sister (called A) for the decedent’s mother–a half-sister who left children of her own. A married at 14 years of age, moved away shortly after that marriage and likely interacted little, if at all with her two older half-sisters. There’s anecdotal evidence that those two older half-sisters were estranged from their father and his second wife.
The children of A should have been included in the estate settlement of the cousin as they were heirs. The contemporary state statute in the state where the estate was probated made no distinction between full and half-siblings.
Given the administrator was from the paternal side of the decedent’s family, he probably didn’t know anything about the younger half-sibling for his father’s brother’s wife.
Sometimes people do get left out.
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