Mystery beneficiary in will

[Annie65115]

My grandmother died in the 1990s. I've just downloaded her will (written moe than 20 years before her death) and actually read it, for the first time ever. I wasn't expecting any surprises as the family all knew what each other received in the will.

But there is a surprise albeit a minor one! A very small gift to a man of whom I'd never heard.

I've done some poking around. He was similar in age to my grandmother, lived in the nearest large town, but not a neighbour of hers. He was married, and had had children, and had lived at the same address for over 30 years prior to the will being written. I'd never heard his wife's name either (and I did know some of my gran's friends; she outlived all her close female friends). Neither this man's surname nor his wife's maiden name appears anywhere in the family tree. He died a couple of year after my grandmother wrote her will; I don't know if his descendants were ever traced by the executors of her will, but the amount bequeathed was such that it wouldn't change anyone's life!

The only thing I can find that might offer a clue is that in the 1939 register he was a clerk to a solicitor, so I wondered if maybe he'd helped my grandmother put the will together - but the signatories on the will are listed as solicitor's clerks and neither has his name. He would have been just past retirement age when the will was written.

It is of no consequence really, I'm just nosey! And of course it's likely I'll never find out why he was a beneficiary, and that's OK. But what other possible scenarios can people think of?

[Spelk]

I think that a beneficiary of the Will would not be allowed to sign it so he may have been working for the solicitors who made up the Will.
Your gran may have made several Wills before the final one.
Have you asked the firm of solicitors who made up the Will whether they ever employed the mystery man?
Was the firm of solicitors based in the same town as he lived?
He may have been a friend of your Gran's husband. Both in the Mason or round Table or Knights of St Cuthbert or old school friends?
Did your Gdad make a Will?
Have you asked your parents, aunts and uncles - his children if any?

[familydar]

Maybe he'd drawn up the Will in his own time and the bequest was his payment.

Jane :-)

[Milliepede]

Went to school together or worked together

[Gillg]

A mystery relative turned up at the funeral of my husband's uncle!  It turned out that said uncle, a widower, had had a "relationship" with a work colleague which resulted in a child being born.  This child, now a teenager, came to the funeral along with his mother! They were totally and rather rudely ignored by the family, but I think the lad received an inheritance of some kind from his natural father!