I met someone with no relatives today

[PaulSB]

I have one friend whose only living relative is a brother and another who has no living relatives.

My sister only has three living blood relatives. Two are a quite distant link and I am the other. We have been estranged, at her choice, for 33 years.

Doesn't strike me as particularly unusual.

 

[Darius_Jedburgh]

Some 20 years ago a mate of mine received a solicitor's letter. An uncle he had never heard of had died and mate was his only living relative. No idea how they traced him, uncle was in Kent and mate was in Lancashire.
He inherited £500,000 which was enormous back then (and still is).
Mate's wife got grandiose ideas and we've now lost touch.

 

[Tenkaykev]

Some 20 years ago a mate of mine received a solicitor's letter. An uncle he had never heard of had died and mate was his only living relative. No idea how they traced him, uncle was in Kent and mate was in Lancashire.
He inherited £500,000 which was enormous back then (and still is).
Mate's wife got grandiose ideas and we've now lost touch.

One of my brothers has a wife who is a bit “ Hyacinth Bucket” When they lived in Leamington she’d always refer to it as “ Royal Leamington Spa” . She’s referred to as “ Queen Jean” amongst the rest of the family.

 

[stephec]

I don’t have anyone now either apart from an estranged brother and his family, which reminds me I really must get a will made. I’ll get the lawyer to be the executor and whatever is left of my estate can get split between a few favourite charities.

Could I have your new Garmin then please? 😊

 

[Drago]

One of my brothers has a wife who is a bit “ Hyacinth Bucket” When they lived in Leamington she’d always refer to it as “ Royal Leamington Spa” . She’s referred to as “ Queen Jean” amongst the rest of the family.

Sounds like he's the bloke who married my ex wife.

 

[vickster]

I believe the policy has been quietly dropped.

According to a documentary I saw, some villages and small towns have been left with a population skewed towards the elderly.

As you might imagine, that's caused some problems with lack of economic activity and the provision of services.

Thank God for Communism eh State support and control and all that stuff

 

[oldworld]

I wonder how many have family they know nothing about. I'm not talking about your misspent youth but family that you've never met.
My father was an orphan and had no relatives. Mum had 12 brothers and sisters but was estranged from them.
My mum at the end of her life told me Dad, who had been dead for years, was married before. She also said that he'd had a daughter from this first marriage.
I always thought I was an only child but I may have a half sister out there.
I must also have many cousins from Mum's side but don't know one of them.
Truth is I'm not that bothered, they'd just be strangers if I met them.

 

[Archie_tect]

Somewhere out in the Australian bush is a multi-millionaire cattle farming uncle who I don't know about who's going to leave me everything... the only problem will be that I have to live on the farm for 2 years... I'll hate it at first and there will be many obstacles to overcome but the day the two years is up I'll wake up and walk out into the bush on a bright, still day and realise it was my destiny all along... then they'll make a film about it.

[What, they already have??]

 

[Milkfloat]

For some reason I always thought you were tall

Blame the milkman

 

[Archie_tect]

Blame the milkman

You mean 'Big Ernie'?

 

[annedonnelly]

I don't think I have ever done that before. Not a single relative of any note at all!

I was on a Teams call and while we were waiting for everyone else I got chatting to another attendee, I asked how her and her family were getting on, and she startled me by saying she has no family. She is an only child of two only children, and additionally one of her grandparents was an only child. Her parents and all her grandparents have passed on. She had no aunts or uncle obviously, so no cousins etc. One of her grandparents had a sibling, who may have had children, but she has not the tiniest clue or inclination to find them as they would be, er, can anyone work out what they would be to her? She herself has never married or had children.

Anyway two questions struck me, one is where would you leave everything (I will try and find out next week on the call) and secondly do only children 'run in the family?'

You've just met someone and plan to ask them who they're going to leave all their worldly goods to? I'd find that a bit intrusive!

 

[Donger]

My understanding is that for someone with no known family and who dies intestate the crown claims everything.

Correct. The rule of "bona vacantia". If you don't want that to happen, make a will to leave your estate to friends, charities or whoever you want to leave it to.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

One of my brothers has a wife who is a bit “ Hyacinth Bucket” When they lived in Leamington she’d always refer to it as “ Royal Leamington Spa” . She’s referred to as “ Queen Jean” amongst the rest of the family.

She does know that the royal disease is syphilis ?

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Correct. The rule of "bona vacantia". If you don't want that to happen, make a will to leave your estate to friends, charities or whoever you want to leave it to.

I always thought that meant "have a good holiday"? No wonder they looked at me strangely in Italy!

 

[nickyboy]

Yes, it got me thinking when they introduced the one child rule did they take the words brother and sister from their dictionary?

Is it still the rule now or are they back to multiple offspring?

Haha, no, of course they didn't remove words from the dictionary. That's just western propaganda nonsense. China has always allowed more than one child for ethnic minorities (of which there are a great many in China but they make up less than 10% of the population) and rural families. For most of the time of the "one child" policy, more than half the population were exempt. It really only applied to urban families who had one healthy child

Now the official policy is "two children" but again there are loads of exemptions

For me; tiny family. Both parents (now dead) were only children so no aunts, uncles, cousins. My only sibling has no family other than me.