Legal Information
The Money
The Last Will and
Testament of William Stevenson, brought to my attention, the value
of his estate. I then dug a little deeper!
I discovered that the family were arguing over William's
trust fund purely by chance. It was a good job they were or the first two
children to William's first wife would not have be found. The fight began in 1848 and
was still going on in 1934! All of the documents have not yet been transcribed.
It has to be written out then typed up - no mean feat!
Records
There is a bundle of
records and legal documents listed under this reference number:-
CS46/1913/11/56
These are only available in Edinburgh
and have to be ordered in. They are not accessible online.
Please contact me for more information.
This is where details of any legal documents uncovered shall
appear. For obvious reasons, the copies of the documents themselves cannot be
shown. Links will be added wherever possible.
Some wills can be downloaded from the
Scottish Office
Web site. These
cost £5.00 each
There is a Will and Codicil, for William Stevenson of Park located at the
Court Books, Alloa as well as his wife, Helen Grindlay and son Charles.
There is also a Will for his son William, Rev. Stevenson,
Stirling Sheriff Court Books.
And one for William which is an inventory, Edinburgh Sheriff
Court Inventories.
Other legal documents can be found at
www.nas.gov.uk but these are only indexes
and you cannot view the actual records. You will have to ask me to look at these
for you as they are the actual documents and most are stored out-with the
building. They have to be requested. If there is any document you would like me
to read through or get a photocopy of, I would be happy to do so but there will
be a charge for this service.
There is a series of about 22-24 documents relating to
William Stevenson, senior. These are the legal cases brought by various
individuals with their claims upon William's estate.
Dumbreck's Case Against the Trust
The Dumbreck's were the cause of all the litigation. It
was because of them that the whole trust fund fell apart and no-one got the
money which should have been theirs, due to the lawyers having to be paid! Of
course the Trustee's should have made sure that their father was never given the
money as he was already in sequestration. The guy who was in charge of that was
also bankrupt and his son made off with whatever money HIS father had. All in
all, a pretty shambolic state of affairs which opened the flood gates, oh, I
mean lawyers pockets! I wonder what they would have done had they known what
would have followed - we might all have been in yachts in the south of France!
These are all pretty long documents but do shed light on who's who.
Charles Stevenson's Money
Charles died without being married
and without issue. There was only an inventory of his estate lodged with the
court. Anyone with an interest in his estate had to come forward and make a
claim. This document has some gaps which were due to it being illegible,
however, it does give some good genealogical facts.
