The McCrery curse strikes again and an administration Q!

[Merry]

BK6 updated from this thread

if you don't want to read my wafflings, please go to the last paragraph where the actual Q appears! lol

Until today I knew John Lavender (my 2nd cousin 3xrem) had married widow Sarah McCrery (another 2nd cousin 3xrem) who had previously been married to Robert Francis McCrery (another 2nd cousin 3xrem), grandson of the man with the curse! (I feel I'm only half joking about that!!!)

John Lavender married Sarah McCrery at St Andrew's Holborn in 1832. The marriage records for that church don't worry about the condition of the bride and groom, so I didn't know if John (who would have been in his mid-30s) was a bachelor or widower.

This morning I found an administration record on the Ancestry NPC records for an Elizabeth Lavender who was the spinster dau of John Lavender of Revel End Farm, Redbourn, Herts. She had died in 1842 and I hadn't been aware of her until now. This led to discovering her C of E bap in 1828 (dau of John and Hannah Lavender) plus a burial for Hannah Lavender in 1830, two years before John remarried. Elizabeth was at school in Hemel Hempstead in 1841 which is why I hadn't made the connection.

Here's the curse bit.......John Lavender married Sarah McCrery and then lost his only child, aged about 13, he then lost his wife, Sarah, in 1845 and his step dau (Robert McCrery's only child) the following day from an unrelated illness. He then died the following year. Should never have married Sarah, methinks! Everywhere the McCrerys go things like this happen.....

The actual Q is, why would the administration for a 13 year old girl's possessions, valued at under £20, take 24 years to sort out? (died 1842 administration granted to her uncle, exor for her father, in 1866)

[kiterunner]

It could be that they just didn't get round to it before then? Did her father die in 1866 and the uncle come across something in his papers which meant he had to get administration of the daughter's estate?

[Olde Crone]

I wouldn't have thought a 13-year old girl's possessions could have been the subject of an admon, as even today, a 13 year old cannot make a valid will. Her possessions belong to her parents.

Are you sure she was an infant at baptism?

OC

[Merry]

Kate - Her father died in 1846.

OC - Her father was born in 1798 and married in 1827. The baptism was in 1828 and the only person I can find who looks to be this child was aged 12 in 1841 and died in April 1842.

I thought the same about her being too young, but everything matches otherwise....it says the man who did her administration was the exor of her father's will and that is right as I have her father's will. The naming of their home (Revel End Farm, Redbourn) on a lot of these records ties it all together nicely too.

Might she have inherited something (before the age of 21??) from another relative that only came to light at a later date? Hmmm....her paternal grandfather died before she was born and her paternal grandmother wrote her will after the child had died. I don't know anything about her maternal grandparents as I only found out their names about ten minutes ago!

UPDATE - I've just found the child's burial on the NBI - she was buried six days after the date of death given on the NPC, at the same graveyard her mother was interred at, and her age is given as 13.

All very odd.

[kiterunner]

Maybe if you get the letter of adminstration it will explain, but maybe not. There might be something called a certificate of delay but I don't know whether it is possible to get a copy of that or where you would get it from.

[Olde Crone]

But you cannot inherit anything legally before the age of majority, it has to be held in trust for you.

Very odd, unless the admon was needed to break the trust? But you say her goods were worth less than £20....

OC

[Merry]

Perhaps it was a scam of some sort?!!

[Merry]

So in theory she couldn't own anything because anything that apparently belonged to her would actually belong to her father because she was a minor who died within his lifetime?

[Margaret in Burton]

So in theory she couldn't own anything because anything that apparently belonged to her would actually belong to her father because she was a minor who died within his lifetime?

Well if she couldn't inherit so it should have gone to her father but he was also dead then surely it would go to the father's legal next of kin?

[Merry]

Oh yes, I suppose that would be so. I wonder what it took them so long to discover?

[Olde Crone]

Oooh, just realised there was a farm involved. I wonder if it was something to do with the lease of the farm - three lives lease, possibly. If she was the only child it would have passed to her and her age in that case would not have mattered.

OC

[Merry]

Any idea how I would find out?

[Olde Crone]

Merry, I'm not sure!

My northeners normally obliged me by leaving a land transaction in the county archives, or a listing on a Tithe map. I don't know if Hertfordshire has Tithe maps?

It can sometimes be extraordinarily difficult to find out, because farms and their leases were disposed of entirely independently of Wills and were often not even mentioned in a Will.

OC

[Merry]

I may not try then, as these people are pretty distant to me! Something for the back burner....