Hereditary succession. Descent is the title, whereby a person, upon the death of his ancestor, acquires the estate of the latter, as his heir at law: This manner of acquiring title is directly opposed to that of purchase. 2. It will be proper to consider, 1. What kind of property descends; and, 2. The general rules of descent. 3.-1. All real estate, and all freehold of inheritance in land, descend to the heir. And, as being accessory to the land and making a part of the inheritance, fixtures, and emblements, and all things annexed to, or connected with the land, descend with it to the heir. Terms for years, and other estates less than freehold, pass to the executor, and are not subjects of descent. It is a rule at common law that no one can inherit read estate unless he was heir to the person last seised. This does not apply as a general rule in the United States. 4.-2. The general rules of the law of descent. 1. It is a general rule in the law of inheritance, that if a person owning real estate, dies seised, or as owner, without devising the same, the estate shall descend to his descendants in the direct line of lineal descent, and if there be but one person, then to him or her alone; and if more than one person, and all of equal degree of consanguinity to the ancestor, then the inheritance shall descend to the several persons as tenants in common in equal parts, however remote from the intestate the common degree of consanguinity may be. This rule is in favor of the equal claims of descending line, in the same degree, without distinction of sex, and to the exclusion of all other claimants. The following example will, illustrate it; it consists of three distinct cases: 1. Suppose Paul shall die seised of real estate, leaving two sons and a daughter, in this case the estate would descend to them in equal parts; but suppose, 2. That instead of children, he should leave several grandchildren, two of them the children of his son Peter, and one the son of his son John, these will inherit the estate in equal proportions; or, 3. Instead of children and grandchildren, suppose Paul left ten great grandchildren, one the lineal descendant of his son John, and nine the descendants of his son Peter; these, like the others, would partake equally of the inheritance as tenants in common. 5.-2. It is also a rule, that if a person dying seised, or as owner of the land, leaves lawful issue of different degrees of consanguinity, the inheritance shall descend to the children and grandchildren of the ancestor, if any be living, and to the issue of such children and grandchildren as shall be dead, and so on to the remotest degree, as tenants in common; but such grandchildren and their descendants, shall inherit only such share as their parents respectively would have inherited if living. This rule may be illustrated by the following example: 6.-3. When the owner of land dies without lawful issue, leaving parents, it is the rule in some of the states, that the inheritance shall. ascend to them, first to the father, and then to the mother, or jointly to both, under certain regulations prescribed by statute. 7.-4. When the intestate dies without issue or parents, the estate descends to his brothers and sisters and their representatives. When there are such relations, and all of equal degree of consanguinity to the intestate, the inheritance descends to them in equal parts, however remote from the intestate the common degree of consanguinity may be. When all the heirs are brothers and sisters, or all of them nephews and nieces, they take equally. When some are dead who leave issue, and some are living, then those who are living take the share they would have taken if all had been living, and the descendants of those who are dead inherit only the share which their immediate parents would have received if living. When the direct lineal descendants stand in equal degrees, they take per capita, by the head, each one full share; when, on the contrary, they stand in different degrees of consanguinity to the common ancestor, they take per stirpes, by roots, by right of representation. It is nearly a general rule, that the ascending line, after parents, is postponed to the collateral line of brothers and sisters. Considerable difference exists in the laws of the several states, when the next of kin are nephews and nieces, and uncles and aunts claim as standing in the same degree.
Law Dictionary – Alternative Legal Definition
Hereditary succession. Succession to the ownership of an estate by inheritance, or by any act of law, as distinguished from ”purchase.” Title by descent is the title by which one person, upon the death of another, acquires the real estate of the latter as his heir at law. 2 Bl. Comm. 201; Com. Dig. “Descent” A; Adams v. Akerlund, 168 111. 682, 48 N. E. 454; Starr v. Hamilton, 22 Fed. Cas. 1,107; In re Donahue’s Estate, 36 Cal. 332; Shippen v. Izard, 1 Serg. A R. (Pa.) 224; Brower v. Hunt, 18 Ohio St. 338; Allen v. Bland, 134 Ind. 78, 33 N. E. 774
Classification. Descents are of two sorts, lineal and collateral. Lineal descent is descent in a direct or right line, as from father or grandfather to son or grandson. Collateral descent is descent in a collateral or oblique line, that is, up to the common ancestor and then down from him, as from brother to brother, or between cousins. Levy v. McCartee, 6 Pet 112, 8 L. Ed. 334. They are also distinguished into mediate and immediate descents. But these terms are used in different senses. A descent may. be said to be a mediate or immediate descent of the estate or right; or it may be said to be mediate or immediate, in regard to the medlateness or immediateness of the pedigree or consanguinity. Thus, a descent from the grandfather, who dies in possession, to the grandchild, the father being then dead, or from the uncle to the nephew, the brother being dead, is, in the for mer sense, in’law, immediate descent, although the one is collateral and the other lineal; for the heir is in the per, and not in the per and cat. On the other hand, with reference to the line of pedigree or consanguinity, a descent is often said to be immediate, when the ancestor from whom the party derives his blood is immediate, and without any intervening link or degrees; and mediate, when the kindred is derived from him mediante altero, another ancestor intervening between them. Thus a descent in lineals from father to son is in this sense immediate; but a descent from grandfather to grandson, the father being dead, or from uncle to nephew, the brother being dead, is deemed mediate; the father and the brother being, in these latter cases, the medium deferens, as it is called, of the descent or consanguinity. Levy v. McCartee, 6 Pet. 112, 8 L. Ed. 334; Furenes v. Mickelson, 86 Iowa, 508, 53 N. W, 416; Garner v. Wood, 71 Md. 37, 17 Atl; 103i. Descent was denoted, in the Roman law, by the term usuccession which is also used by Bracton, and from which has been derived the succession of the Scotch and French jurisprudence. Descent cast. The devolving of realty upon the heir on the death of his ancestor intestate.