Does the order that children are listed in a Will generally the same as birth order?

Question

I want to get a sense of how likely it is that birth order correlates with the order in which children are listed in a Will.  Sometimes, usually, always, rarely, or somewhere in between.  Is there a rule of thumb?

Comments

I should have mentioned that the first two sons listed each inherited one half of the father's real estate.  A third inherited the moveable property after the mother died, and then is mentioned again next to last, probably because they cared for the parents in their old age.  The other nine inherited one shilling sterling each.  These allotments also suggests that the two oldest boys were mentioned first and second.  It puzzles me that the birth year estimates for the 12 children have little to do with the listed order in the Will.  I suppose the descendants only look at their ancestor and had their own ways of estimating birth year and nobody is looking at the bigger picture, i.e., the Will.

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Commented, but removed comment due to age of thread, which I had not noticed.

Answer 1

NO rule that I know of, but for those wills that I have seen that do list the children. they are USUALLY in birth order.

Answer 2

Sometimes.  Sometimes the testator will list all his sons in a bunch, then all his daughters in a bunch!

Comments

I've seen this as well.

I've also found some wills with younger unmarried children still in the household listed first, with the older children that were married and who had already been given property/money listed later.

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My experience is also 'sometimes'. The eldest son often seems to come last or separately, reflecting that they inherited some kinds of property by right. Likewise, I've often seen sons and daughters separated out, and children of the second marriage dealt with first.

Answer 3

In my family, they are generally a mess, depending on so many factors: money already given, property to be halved, grandchildren receiving a behest.

Answer 4

Something else that can impact on the order in which they are mentioned is whether the daughters are single and still dependent on the parent or married.

Answer 5

No, you can not depend on the children being listed in birth order and you also can not depend on all of the children being listed.  The will of my 6th great grandfather only list the 4 children by his second marriage and does not list any of the 5 children by his first marriage who were grown when he died.  We know the names of all the children by both marriages because of surviving Bible records.

Comments

In the last two years that this William Scott of Bedford Virginia collaborative research project has been underway, we have received many opinions including the one above.  The members of this project have also seen several Wills in our process and reviewed many in our past experience.

We have reached a conclusion, but it incorporates a comprehensive view of all the material on this family that we have collected and complex reasoning derived from proving sources.  We concluded that these twelve children were all offspring of William Scott (~1720-1794), but the first 6 or 7 from a different wife than his widow, Lucy.  This opens the possibility that there were additional children from both wives who were not alive in 1793.  Subsequently we believe they are in birth order with the exception of Peter, who was mentioned 3rd and 11th and actually being next to the youngest.  That has been our working theory and believe all data collected agrees with that.  Therefore we have different birth year estimates than most other trees on the internet, and only have two specific birth dates taken from pension applications.

We acknowledge that every Will is different and all need to be evaluated from available data and sources collected on all parties listed.  We appreciate all those who have taken the time to share their thoughts.