If you had ancestors or relatives who died in while serving in the Canadian military  during the World War I years, be sure you’ve looked for their estate files. Those files will provide more insight into how the turmoil of war impacted on your family, as well as (with a little luck) some unexpected treasures.

It isn’t difficult to imagine that a war that caused the deaths of some 60,000 young Canadian men and women would affect the plans families had to pass on the goods and property they had accumulated over a lifetime or perhaps several lifetimes. The War years saw fathers or mothers acting as executors for their sons and daughters, and young wives administering their husbands’ estates—decades earlier than they expected. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen. It was supposed to be the other way around.

You can read a lot more in an article by Jane E. MacNamara published in the Where The Story Takes Me web site at https://wherethestorytakesme.ca/inheritance-interrupted/

My  thanks to newsletter reader Terry Mulcahy for informing me about this article.