A law passed by the Virginia General Assembly in October 1748 appears to
have been in force at the time of the estate you describe.  [Hening's
Statutes, vol. 5, p. 454-467, "An Act directing the manner of granting
probats of Wills, and Administration of Intestates Estates."]

Page 458 lists the order that persons should be appointed to administer
an estate:  "...administration of the estate of every person dying
intestate ... shall be granted in manner following:  First to the
husband or wife of the deceased, and if none such, or if they refuse,
then secondly, to the child or children, or their legal representatives,
and if none such appear or claim, then thirdly, to the father or mother,
or if none such, then fourthly, to the brothers and sisters, and if none
such, then to the next of kindred to the deceased persons ..." 

If the daughter in question had no husband, no child, and no father,
then her mother would have been next in line to administer her estate.
If her mother was not alive, then it would have gone to her siblings and
then to next of kin (e.g. an uncle or cousin).  If you can determine
that an uncle or cousin existed who was not offered the job, then it is
likely that the administratrix was the woman's natural mother.  

But if the estate being administered was still her father's estate (and
had not been fully probated by the time of the daughter's death) then
the widow of that man should have been the administratrix, whether or
not she was the daughter's mother. 

Simple? 

Donald L. Wilson, Virginiana Librarian,
Ruth E. Lloyd Information Center
  for Genealogy and Local History (RELIC),
Prince William Public Library System,
Bull Run Regional Library,
8051 Ashton Avenue, Manassas, VA  20110-2892
703-792-4540   www.pwcgov.org/library/relic


------------------------------

Date:    Fri, 7 Dec 2007 17:38:42 -0800
From:    Steven Zuraff <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: can a step-mother be the administratrix in Virginia circa 1760

I'm trying to intrepret an administration.
A man died without leaving a will in 1758. A neighbor became the =
administrator of his estate.=20 There are no additional records about
the estate until seven years = later. Then a record indicates that he
had daughter who by this time was = deceased. The daughter had an estate
which I presume was the one which = had belonged to her father in 1758.
She appears to have been his only = offspring. A woman who I believe was
the man's widow became the = administratrix of the daughter's estate.
Thus the administratrix was either the mother or the step-mother of the
= deceased daughter. I'm trying to decide which.
Question: Were there any inheritance laws which prevented a step-mother
= from becoming the administratrix of a step-daughter? Or can I
reasonably = conclude that she would have been the daughter's mother?

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