Other contents of a South African Deceased Estate file

The Liquidation and Distribution Account gives details of all the assets in the estate, including movable and immovable property, and also lists claims which have been paid out of the estate such as advertisements in newspapers, funeral expenses etc.

The distribution part refers to how the assets were divided amongst the beneficiaries. One of its uses for family history can be providing names of grandchildren who may not have been mentioned at the time the will was made. This information could take the family historian forward to living descendants.

An inventory of the deceased’s belongings can offer various important facts. The full legal description of a piece of land, given under immovable assets, may come in handy for searches at the Deeds Office. (For more on inventories, see my post of 30 January 2010 entitled ‘Getting the best out of NAAIRS’.)

It’s really worthwhile looking at any miscellaneous correspondence in the estate file e.g. invoices from tradesmen claiming settlement of accounts. An undertaker’s invoice may note the burial place, even a plot number of a grave. It will also give an idea of the scale of the funeral – and who paid for it (there were often arguments among relatives as to who should foot the bill for the tombstone).

A simple list of garments turned out to be my great great grandmother’s mourning clothes, as well as some for her daughters, ordered from the ‘Silk Mercer, Milliner and Straw Bonnet Manufacturer’ – hats, gloves, ribbons, braid, lace tuckers and (a vital accessory for the occasion) handkerchiefs - so that the family would be correctly attired for my great great grandfather’s funeral in 1869.

Tradeplates and engraved letterheads on correspondence can make decorative illustrations for a family history narrative.

All the above points emphasise that you'd miss out on a great deal of information if you were to access only the Death Notice in a Deceased Estate file.

Deceased Estate files in SA family history research

In the context of South African family history research, deceased estate documentation is a valuable starting point. If an ancestor died in SA, the chances of discovering further information are good – better than if he was passing through on his way to another colony or making a temporary stay before returning to his place of origin.

Using deceased estate material it’s possible to go back to his earlier history as well as forwards to more recent generations, even to living descendants.

First, search NAAIRS to identify a relevant deceased estate file for your forebear. If his area of residence isn’t known search on the RSA (all SA) database adding a reasonable time frame for the event in the ‘beginning’ and ‘ending’ facility at the foot of the search form. As always, it helps if the ancestor had an unusual surname or forename.

You can expect to find the following in an estate file: Death Notice, Will, Final Accounts and correspondence. All of these are potential sources of information. There’s a tendency to access only the Death Notice: while this is an important document, it’s advisable not to stop your search there but to check (or delegate your researcher to check) the other file contents too.

It is false economy to limit a search to the Death Notice alone. There is so much more to be discovered in even the most unlikely pieces of paper e.g. an argument by correspondence between family members over who would pay for the tombstone reveals precise details as to burial place of the deceased. Such information may not be obtained easily elsewhere.