There Was Jell-O in Her Genes

Elizabeth McNabb was 19 in 1974 when she began her search for her birth mother. Fourteen years and a court order later, she was given access to her original birth certificate in Salem, Ore. She soon after made contact with her birth mother, Barbara (Woodward) Piel, and learned that she was the product of an illicit affair.

McNabb's great-grandfather, she also learned, was Orator Francis Woodward, a Leroy, N.Y., entrepreneur who purchased a business making a flavored gelatin known as "Jell-O" from his neighbor for $450 in 1899.

Barbara Piel died in 2003, but it took until last week for McNabb to be granted her share of the multimillion-dollar Jell-O fortune.

On Friday, a unanimous New York Appellate Division, 4th Department, panel ruled that McNabb legally constitutes a "descendant" and "living child" of her mother, Barbara W. Piel, under trusts established by Piel's mother in 1926 and 1963.

McNabb -- an office manager who has with her husband cared for more than 160 emergency-care foster children -- now stands to split those two trusts with her two half-sisters. Her one-third share totals approximately $3.5 million. [Link]

The Unlisted Are Unlucky

Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara was the illegitimate son of an aristocratic woman, and had no children and few friends.

So when it came to writing out his will almost 20 years ago, he asked a Portuguese notary for a copy of the Lisbon phone book and plucked out names at random.

Now, with the unhappy man having drunk himself into the grave, his randomly chosen heirs are receiving lawyers' letters telling them they can claim a share of his fortune. [Link]

It Pays to Keep in Touch

Back in the 1880s, former slave Matthew Jones paid $225 for a parcel of land on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Now the land is worth millions, and 180 of Jones's heirs have banded together to reap the profits.

Some of the family members had approached attorney Horace Jones to help them clear the title to the property so it could be sold. Brown suggested that instead of selling, the family consolidate the title and form a limited liability corporation to develop the tract. The effort involved tracking down descendants across the country.

"The good thing is the family was large but they kept in touch with each other," Jones said. [Link]

Why Genealogy Matters

From The Brownsville (Tex.) Herald:

Balli family gathers to discuss Island settlement

By KEVIN GARCIA
The Brownsville Herald

December 11, 2005 — More than 200 years after a distant relative founded what would become South Padre Island, families that felt cheated by the loss of the land are one step closer to receiving reparations.

In July, a Texas Court of Appeals judge upheld a verdict from 2000 that awarded the descendents of Juan Jose Balli the mineral rights and royalties to Padre Island. Balli’s brother, Father Jose Nicolas Balli, is the “padre” for which the Island was named.

[snip]

“This case is not about taking the Island back,” [Balli descendant Hector] Cardenas said, adding that many family members may not receive as much as they’d imagined. “Ultimately, what everyone receives depends on where you fall on the (family) tree.”

[Read the whole story]