Family Drama: Dangling Inheritances and Promised Lands

Abstract

This paper reviews Hartog’s 2012 book, Someday All this will be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age. Relying on case documents from trial courts in New Jersey in the early twentieth century, Hartog tells the rich stories behind these cases. The cases involve claims by family members, usually sons or daughters, who were promised inheritances in exchange for taking care of an aged parent. Sometimes those promises are enforced and sometimes not. The stories behind the cases, and Hartog’s observations about them. should be of interest to teachers and scholars of wills, trusts, and estates.

Keywords: Statute of Frauds; part performance; wills and estates